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Tetrodotoxin (TTX), found in various organisms including pufferfish, is an extremely potent marine toxin responsible for numerous food poisoning accidents. Due to its serious toxicity and public health threat, detecting TTX and its analogues in diverse food matrices with a simple, fast, efficient method has become a worldwide concern. This review summarizes the advances in sample preparation and analytical methods for the determination of TTX and its analogues, focusing on the latest development over the past five years. Current state-of-the-art technologies, such as solid-phase microextraction, online technology, novel injection technology, two-dimensional liquid chromatography, high-resolution mass spectrometry, newly developed lateral flow immunochromatographic strips, immunosensors, dual-mode aptasensors, and nanomaterials-based approaches, are thoroughly discussed. The advantages and limitations of different techniques, critical comments, and future perspectives are also proposed. This review is expected to provide rewarding insights to the future development and broad application of pretreatment and detection methods for TTX and its analogues.

Objective: Post-dialysis fatigue (PDF) is an important problem in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD); however, evidence of the association between serum calcium after dialysis and the risk of PDF is limited and controversial. We explored this association among patients receiving MHD. Methods: We carried out a case–control study of patients in the dialysis unit of Dalian Municipal Central Hospital between December 2019 and January 2020, including 340 patients with PDF and 270 patients without PDF. PDF was assessed by a \validated self-administered questionnaire. Clinical variables were tested for multicollinearity using variance inflation factor analysis. Corrected serum calcium levels were categorized into three groups, with the lowest tertile used as the reference category. The odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for PDF risk were estimated using an unconditional logistic regression model. Result: After adjusting for potential confounders, corrected serum calcium levels showed a significant positive association with the risk of PDF (ORT3vs.T1= 1.61, 95% CI = 1.01–2.58). Notably, after stratification by age, corrected serum calcium was also positively associated with the risk of PDF in patients aged ≥ 65 years (ORT3vs.T1= 4.25, 95% CI 1.66–11.46). Furthermore, a significant linear trend and interaction were also observed (P< 0.05). Discussion: Higher corrected serum calcium levels after dialysis might increase the risk of PDF among MHD patients. However, further studies are warranted to confirm these findings.

Background: Overweight and obesity are rising among Chinese reproductive-age women, while some studies have focused on the relationship between sedentary behavior and obesity in certain populations, none has focused on Chinese reproductive-age women specifically. This study examined secular trends in leisure time sedentary behaviors (watching television time, computer time and reading time, and the total sedentary time) among Chinese reproductive-age women and the association of those behaviors with five weight indicators—body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity status. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted with Chinese reproductive-age women aged 15–49 who had participated in two or more rounds of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), and completed the questionnaire and anthropometric measurements. The exposure variables were the average weekly time spent on three leisure time sedentary behaviors (watching television, using computer, and reading) and the total sedentary time (the sum of the above three sedentary time and video game time). Mixed-effect linear models were produced to explore the secular trends of the mean hours of these sedentary behaviors and the total sedentary time after adjusting covariates. Models were also produced to study the effects of these types of sedentary behavior levels on BMI and WC. Mixed-effect logistic regression models were produced to study the effects of the sedentary behavior levels on overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity status. Results: The total sedentary time among the reproductive-age women increased over time across most of age, region, educational levels, and income groups from 2004 to 2015. Television hours fluctuated, it increased and then declined over time across most of age, region, and income groups. Computer hours continually increased over time across all age, region, educational level, and income groups. Reading hours gradually decreased over time across most of age, region, educational level, and income groups. Those with a moderate level of television time (14 to <35 h/week) had 1.08 cm larger WCs and were 1.31 times more likely to have abdominal obesity than those with a low level of television time (<14 h/week). Those with a high level of television time (≥35 h/week) had 1.74 cm larger WCs, 0.66 kg/m2larger BMIs, were 1.50 times more likely to be overweight and were 1.47 times more likely to have abdominal obesity than those with a low level of television time (<14 h/week). Greater computer, reading time, and total sedentary time were not associated with WC, BMI, overweight, obesity, or abdominal obesity. Conclusions: These findings showed that among Chinese reproductive-age women ages 15–49, secular trends of computer time increased rapidly, reading time decreased gradually and television time fluctuated but showed not much difference from 2004 to 2015. The sharp increase in computer time far outweighed the decline in reading time. As a result, the overall sedentary behavior time of Chinese reproductive-age women gradually increased. These findings provided strong evidence that greater television time was significantly associated with higher BMI, WC, and higher risks of overweight, abdominal obesity among Chinese reproductive-age women. Computer, reading, and the total sedentary time were not associated with those weight indicators.

The water consumption intensity of steel production through BF-BOF technology was decomposed by an innovative process-based water-accounting model, i.e., water-balance model. One ton of steel product was chosen to be the functional unit. The system boundary of the case study included the production processes of coking, sintering, iron making, steel making, continuous casting and rolling. The results showed that the water consumption intensity of steel production was 3.969t/t in this case. The water consumption of evaporation, solidification and wastewater were 2.373t, 0.013t and 1.583t, accounting for 59.79%, 0.33% and 39.88% of the total water consumption, respectively. Steel rolling is the largest contributor to water consumption, and the amount of water consumption is 1.523t, accounting for 38.37% of the total water consumption; followed by coking process and continuous casting process, the amounts of which are 0.814t (20.50%) and 0.634t (15.97%), respectively. This finding can push the utilization of advanced technologies to save water resource in steel industry.

As a new type of unsaturated linear magnetoresistive materials, tungsten ditelluride series material has potential applications in the fields of strong magnetic detection, information recording and magnetic storage devices. The current development concepts of “green materials”, “green chemical technology” and “environmentally friendly technology” require us to pursue the non-toxic, low-emission and non-emission in material synthesis technology. At the same time, the prepared products show excellent performance and high versatility and efficiency. According to our previous work, the study attempts to use a low-volatile amine solvent as a pretreatment raw material to synthesize a tungsten germanium-based linear magnetoresistive material by hydrothermal/solvothermal method and self-fluxing method. The obtained materials were subjected to XRD, Raman, SEM and Magnetoresistance. Experimental results show that when the mass ratio of W and Te is 1:4, the prepared material is pure phase and the sample is the layered structure. The Magnetoresistance Property points out that the maximum value is about 190 %, which appears in the condition of 10 K and 7 T. Those test projects include phase, structure and morphology characteristics, and provide technical parameters and methods for the development of green synthesis and potential applications of tungsten ditelluride series linear magnetoresistive materials.

The demand for rare earths in aluminum alloy industry has experienced substantial growth in recent years. The erbium and scandium are two effective rare earth additives, mainly due to its remarkable improvement to aluminum alloy performance. However, the production process of rare earth has caused significant environmental problems. Hence, the analysis of environmental impacts associated with erbium and scandium processing is gaining importance. In this study, a life cycle analysis on the environment impacts of erbium oxide (Er2O3) and scandium oxide (Sc2O3) was carried out based on life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The life cycle assessment results showed that the production of 1 kg of Er2O3 and Sc2O3 generated 21.7 kg CO2 eq. and 743 kg CO2 eq., respectively. The leaching and purification process accounting for 95% of the overall water usage of Er2O3 production. For Sc2O3, energy and chemical consumption played a key role in reducing environmental impacts. Furthermore, Er2O3 appeared to have less environmental impact than Sc2O3 on most environmental issues. A detailed review of contribution was conducted and recommendations for further research were given.

The present study was designed to explore whether yam could protect the heart from doxorubicin (DOX)-induced oxidative stress leading to cardiotoxicity in vivo. In this study, the protective effects of water and ethanol extracts of three varieties of yam, including water extracts of Dioscorea japonicaThunb., ethanol extracts of D. japonicaThunb., water extracts of Dioscorea alata, ethanol extracts of D. alata, water extracts of Dioscorea purpurea, and ethanol extracts of D. purpurea, against DOX-induced cardiotoxicity in experimental mice were evaluated. DOX treatment led to significant decreases in the ratio of heart weight to body weight and heart rate, and increases in blood pressure and the serum level of lactate dehydrogenase, a marker of cardiotoxicity, were recovered by yam extracts, especially in water extracts of D. alata. Yam extracts also decreased the cardiac levels of thiobarbituric acid relative substances, reactive oxygen species, and inflammatory factors, as well as the expression of nuclear factor kappa B, while ethanol extracts of D. japonicaThunb. and D. purpureawere shown to be more potent. Moreover, yam extracts had a role in increasing the activities of glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase, thus improving the DOX-induced alterations in oxidative status in the heart tissue of DOX-treated mice. All ethanol extracts of yam exhibited their antiapoptotic abilities on caspase-3 activation and mitochondrial dysfunction, and ethanol extracts of D. alatastill exerted a superior effect. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that yam has significant cardioprotective properties against DOX-induced damage via its multiple effects on antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, or antiapoptotic activities.

The environmental impact of Chinese cathode copper production was identified and quantified in the context of pyrometallurgy ical and hydrometallurgical method by life cycle approach. Combined with the situation of copper resources in China, the copper ores mining, mineral processing, transportation and smelting sector, were analyzed in detail. The normalization results shows that abiotic depletion is the largest environmental impact in both Pyro-and hydro-metallurgical methods, which were 28.4 kg Sb eq and 32.0 kg Sb eq, respectively. Electrolytic refining is the key process in hydrometallurgical life cycle environmental burden (50.21%), and the mining process contributed the largest environmental impact (17.94%) in pyrometallurgical process. In addition, the total environmental burden of pyrometallurgical process is 1.15 times of hydrometallurgical process. Pyrometallurgical methods has many environmental impact category which were much higher than hydrometallurgical because of the more use of fossil fuels in smelting process. Based on the life cycle assessment results, the key factors to reduce the overall environmental impact for China’s cathode copper production include optimizing the efficiency of copper resource, and clean energy sources for electricity production.

Substance flow analysis (SFA) is an established method to analyze the structure and characterization of resource flows or substance flows. Lanthanum (La) is an important type of light rare earth element, which is widely used in the fields of glass, luminescence, catalyst, agriculture, etc. This paper conducts a static SFA for lanthanum in China in 2002 and 2011, including different life cycle stages, e.g., exploitation, concentration, smelting, manufacture, use and disposal. Mining utilization efficiency, smelting ratio, export rate, ratio of scrap to raw material in 2002 and 2011 were comparatively analyzed. The results indicated that the utilization efficiency of La in the production stage of rare earth concentrates increased in 2011 relative to the value in 2002 by 80%, and the utilization efficiency of La in the manufacturing stage increased by 74%. The results also showed that although the mining utilization rate was increased, the resource efficiency was still low and how to increase the resource efficiency is a significant issue for Chinese rare earth industry. On the based of the results, some advices were also proposed, which will provide useful reference information for the green development of Chinese rare earth industry.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) can provide technical support for environmental management in China. However, there is no consensus on allocation method in inventory analysis. According to the World Steel Association (WAS), the environmental impact, life cycle environmental load and environmental benefit of China's iron and steel industry should be considerd when investing scrap iron and steel. The results of this study show that according to the different allocation methods, the environmental impact of China's iron and steel industry will be divided into 3 methods: 1) not considering environmental load and environmental benefit of the environment (Cut-off approach); 2) considering the environmental load or environmental benefits (Waste evaluation method) and 3) considering environmental load and environmental benefits (Recycling benefits method). The environmental impact of Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel billet is raising by using the waste evaluation method compared with that of basic oxygen furnace (BOF), which are all decreased by using the cut-off approach. Recycling benefits method compared with Cut-off approach that the BOF hot rolled steel coil (HRC) environmental impact, the environmental impact of EAF steel billet all decreased, and leading the BOF hot rolled steel coil environmental impact to a larger proportion of the environmental impact.

With development of the economic, China has been the largest cement production country in the world. But the big production of cement also causes serious ecological environmental problems. In this study, a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment was carried out for four typical cement factories in China. The results indicated that new suspension preheater (NSP) process and power plant were mainly to blame for most emissions and environmental performances, and GWP is the most prominent category in the accumulative environmental performance of cement production. Any of the strategies for cleaner production of cement considered in this study, including larger production scale, cogeneration and using calcium carbide slag as secondary material, has effect in improving the environmental performance, but the final single result show that the utilization of calcium carbide slag is the best method, and it could reduce the environmental impact obviously.

A high clearance self-propelled sprayer was designed, and a 3D model of sprayer frame was built with CATIA. Its finite element model was built by using Hypermesh, and it was imported to ABAQUS for finite element analysis. The analysis researched the stress and deformation of frame under four typical conditions of constant-velocity, torsion, emergency braking and emergency turning. The weak region of strength in the variable track mechanism was found, and a size optimization research was carried to the square pipe of the variable track mechanism. The result showed that the maximum stress of frame after optimization decreased obviously, and the distribution of stress became much more reasonable. The optimization ensured the reliability of the frame design.

The resource intensity of primary nickel production in China was analyzed by the indicator of exergy, which can provide a unified picture about the overall processes involved in the life cycle of nickel. The results show that primary nickel’s CExD value is 235GJex/t, and the largest contributor to the CExD is electricity (46%), followed by fuels (31%), mineral (16%), and land resource (7%); the considerable proportion natural mineral and land resource account for in the result is due to the high exergy value of sulphide minerals and the low grade of natural nickel ore. The results also show that the calculation of this study is sensitive to the choice of allocation basis (mass and market value); however, market value is not recommended in this study since that nickel’s price varies greatly over time.

In order to determine the optimal parameters of the external insulation system and guide the energy saving and greenhouse gas emission reduction of building, a typical student dormitory building in Beijing was chosen as research object. The life cycle thinking and dynamic simulation method were used in the present investigation. The relationship between the expandable polystyrene (EPS) external insulation system design parameters and building energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission in each phase of materials production phase, operation phase and the whole life cycle was studied, systematically . The results show that the consumption of clay brick, concrete and cement mortar account for 98.1% of the total materials consumption, where concrete contributes most to both energy consumption (36.6%) and greenhouse gas emission (35.9%). Regarding the contribution to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission for building life cycle, materials production phase accounts for 5.6%-18.8% and building operation phase takes up 80.6%-93.4%. With the increase of EPS insulation thickness, the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission increase linearly in materials production phase, decrease in building operation phase, and have an optimization value in the building life cycle to reach the minimum when the heat transfer coefficient (K) is 0.3W / (m2 • K) equivalent to the EPS insulation thickness is 130mm. Building heating load reduces with the increases of insulation thickness, but the envelope thermal insulation performance has no significant influence on cooling load.

The energy consumption due to heat loss from exterior windows plays an important part in that of the whole building. Therefore, the environmental impact of exterior windows couldn’t be neglected. In this study, the energy consumption and environmental impact were quantified and analyzed based on life cycle assessment methodology. The results showed that both energy consumption and environmental impact of aluminum alloy windows and wood-plastic (WPC) windows mainly occurred at the production stage of aluminum alloy profile and flat glass respectively. At the stage of aluminum alloy profile production, the energy consumption and environment impact were 73.06% and 86% of whole life cycle, and for WPC windows they were 32.95% and 48% at the stage of flat glass production. In addition, the energy consumption and comprehensive environmental impact of aluminum alloy windows during the whole life cycle were 1.26 and 4.59 times more than that of WPC windows.

In this study, the CML model for resource depletion was updated based on the current status of the mineral resources and the characteristics of relevant statistics in China; and the characterization factors of resource depletion were determined for the majority of natural minerals which are most used in materials industry. Besides, case studies on iron and steel production (BF-BOF and EAF process) were carried out to demonstrate the valid of the modified and localized resource depletion model. The results show that in terms of category, the development of Chinese steel industry is mainly based on the depletion of the natural iron ore and fluorite. The results also show that for BF-BOF process, abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP) in 2012 is 5.26 times of that in 2004; and for the EAF process, ADP in 2012 is 23.6 times of that in 2004. Therefore, the information of ADP needs to be updated at intervals of time.

The aim of this paper is to explore material flow analysis, study the resource consumption and environmental impact of the production preparation process of typical rare earth materials. The results showed that in the beneficiation processes, producing one ton of rare earth concentrates (Rare Earth Oxide, REO50%) will also produces 27 tons of iron ore and 21 tons of tailings. The recovery of rare earths is only 16.8%. In roasting processes, roasting one ton (REO50%) of rare earth concentrates will emits 150 ~ 200Kg sulfuric acid mist, 500 ~ 600Kg sulfur dioxide, 30 ~ 40Kg fluoride, 30 ~ 50Kg smoke and1t (containing thorium) radioactive slag, and 1.2 tons of concentrated sulfuric acid should be used. The lower recoveries and large-scale of concentrated sulfuric acid used in roasting processes in rare earth industry are the main reasons lead to high pollution and high emissions.

Amorphous alloy strips has been widely used in the field of distribution transformers due to its good soft magnetic properties. The resources, energy consumption of the amorphous alloy strips production with the rapid solidification technique and the environmental impacts were calculated based on the life cycle assessment method. The results showed that the largest contribution to the non-renewable resource consumption was ferroboron production process, accounting for 98% of abiotic resource depletion (ADP). And the strip production process had the largest contribution to the global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), photochemical oxidation potential (POCP), human toxicity potential (HTP),eutrophication potential (EP). Ferroboron production process contributed the biggest environmental impact when producing 1 ton amorphous strip, accounting for 70% of the total environmental impact. Under the new technology for energy-saving and emission-reduction, when the utilization rate of boric acid increased in ferroboron production process, all the environmental impact decreased.

Magnesium is a promising lightweight and green metallic engineering material, but the environmental impact of primary magnesium production stage, especially greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cannot be ignored. In this study, the life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions caused by the production of primary magnesium in the years of 2003-2013 in China were calculated; the factor decomposition was conducted to analyze the GHG emissions of magnesium production process by using logarithmic mean Divisia index method (LMDI), including energy GHG emission factors, energy structure, energy consumption per ton of primary magnesium, production, emissions per unit of dolomite and ferrosilicon, and dolomite and ferrosilicon consumptions per ton of primary magnesium. The results showed that GHG emissions of primary magnesium production increased 260.29*104 t CO2eq in total from 2003 to 2013. The variety magnesium production contributed the biggest part of GHG emissions, accounting for 418.17%. The energy structure took second place on the contribution of GHG emissions, accounting for-161.49%. The nest part was energy consumption per ton of primary magnesium, accounting for-138.97%. While, the contribution of energy GHG emission factors, emissions per unit of dolomite and ferrosilicon, and dolomite and ferrosilicon consumptions per ton of primary magnesium was relatively small, which were 0.88%, 0.00% -2.72% -4.73% and-11.13%, respectively. Thus, it is the key methods to reduce GHG emissions by optimizing the energy structure and decreasing the energy consumption.

Foam glass was widely used as a green energy saving material with good performances of light, thermal insulation and sound absorption. Using waste glass as raw material for foam glass production, can not only turn waste into treasure and reduce resource consumption, but also protect the environment. In this article, the foam glass which produced in Jiaxing, China was studied based on the method of life cycle assessment (LCA), and the resources, the energy consumption and the emission of pollutants at the same time were evaluated. The results show that the characterization value of GWP is the largest. The foaming stage is the main contributor which accounts for 79.7%. Similarly, the foaming stage is the major contributor to AP, POCP, EP and HTP .The characterization value of ADP is the smallest. The foaming stage and annealing stage is the main contributor to ADP which account for 43.0%, 49.7% respectively. It has been found that the foaming stage makes the most contribution to the environmental impact. AP, GWP, POCP and EP of the foaming stage are extremely prominent compared to other stages. The authors used the methods of equal weight coefficient and AHP to weight the single indicator. The results show that the environment impact caused by the foaming stage is the largest, then grinding stage and cutting stage follow behind. The environment impact caused by the transportation stage is the smallest.

In the view of scarce of natural mineral resources and requirement of energy-saving/emission-reducing for cement industry, the natural silicon-aluminum clay as one cement raw material has been gradually replaced by silica-rich industrial wastes, such as, fly ash, a principal solid waste discharged from coal-fired power plants, composed mainly of silica- and alumina-rich glass bead-shaped mineral. Using fly ash to produce cement raw materials, the formation and chemical reactions of cement clinker are affected by the chemical and mineral composition as well as the texture of the fly ash and the paper was focused on it. The empirical formula for formation heat of fly ash-doped cement clinker is revised on the basis of chemical thermodynamics. The results show that with the use of fly ash, in contrast with the traditional ingredients, the formation of varieties of clinker minerals as well as the formation sequence and types of intermediates varied little, while the maximum decomposition temperature of carbonate was lowered by 50 °C approximately, so that both the solid phase reaction temperature and liquid phase sintering point were decreased, which is favorable to the reduction of clinker formation heat. The revised formation heat empirical formula of fly ash-doped clinker could facilitate the thermal calculation of furnaces and the evaluation of thermal efficiency.

As angiogenesis and vasculogenesis involve the complex network structures of various types of cells, extracellular matrix components, and cytokines, it is still difficult to exactly mimic the microenvironment of vascularization in vivo. In our study, we constructed a complex containing highly proliferative fibroblasts that can secrete extracellular matrix components and growth factors to chemotaxize endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in an attempt to create an ideal microenvironment for quick vascularization. Amniotic membrane microparticles (mAM) rich in type IV collagen (COL IV) and laminin (LN) were prepared, and human dermal fibroblasts (HDF) were infected with lentivirus (LV) of overexpression of SDF-1α to construct SDF-1αovHDF. Using the rotary cell culture system (RCCS), mAM was loaded with HDF or SDF-1αovHDF to construct HDF-mAM and SDF-1αovHDF-mAM complexes. The complexes were able to secrete various types of active peptides (IL-6, IL-8, TGF-β, and bFGF) during in vitro culture. In addition, SDF-1αovHDF-mAM complex highly expressed SDF-1α. Transwell assay showed SDF-1αovHDF-mAM complex had an apparent chemotactic effect on EPCs. Transplantation of complexes onto full-thickness skin defects of C57BL mice further demonstrated that SDF-1α expression and the number of peripheral EPCs at days 3, 5, and 7 in the SDF-1αovHDF-mAM group were significantly higher than that in other groups (p< 0.01). The local microvascular density at day 10 of transplantation showed that the microvascular density in the SDF-1αovHDF-mAM group was significantly higher than that in HDF-mAM group (p< 0.01). In conclusion, HDF-mAM had a strong proliferative activity and could be used to create a sound microenvironment for quick vascularization by secreting multiple cytokines and extracellular matrix components. Overexpression of SDF-1α could chemotaxize EPCs to reach local wounds, thus further accelerating angiogenesis in the transplant site. The technique described may prove to be a new model for accelerating vascularization of tissue and organ transplants and chronic ischemic wounds.

With the rapid development of industry in China, China has become the largest producer of refined copper as well as the largest consumer of copper in the world. In order to provide the support for decreasing the environmental impact of the copper pyrometallurgy of China, the life cycle assessment methodology was carried out in this study to identify and analyze the typical processes’ environmental load of refined copper production from ‘cradle-to-gate’ perspective. The results showed that the most serious environmental impact of copper pyrometallurgy was abiotic depletion potential and human toxicity. The abiotic depletion potential mainly comes from the copper ore mining, for this reason, increasing the use of renewable copper is an effective means to alleviate environmental load of our country copper pyrometallurgy industry. Meanwhile, reducing the direct and indirect discharge of poisonous and harmful elements (e.g. heavy metals) from the copper ore mining stage and the copper smelting process could decrease the human health damage efficiently.

When steel slag, a by-product of steel making in impurity catching process, is added, the forming process of cement clinker and the major reactions in that process are changed. Since there are dramatic differences between the chemical components and mineral compositions of steel slag and that of natural cement raw materials, the empirical equation for the calculating forming heats of cement clinker made of limestone and clay is no longer applied for those made of steel slag. In this paper, the empirical equation for forming heat calculation of steel slag added cement clinker was promoted, and testified by acid dissolution experiments. Results showed that the change of raw materials had great influence on the forming heat of cement clinker. When the traditional raw materials were replaced with steel slag, the forming heat of cement clinker reduced. Calculating the forming heat by our revised empirical equation can help reduce errors and bring great convenience for the calculation and evaluation of heat efficiency. This research provides theoretical underpinning for the study and calculation of forming heat of steel slag added cement clinker.

The development of eco-materials has become an important direction of materials science. Using appropriate methods to evaluate the environmental impacts caused by materials production is important for eco-materials research. For the purpose of obtaining more objective results to environment impacts, several exergy-based methods to indicate resource depletion have been established. However, no proper exergy-based evaluation methods for emissions in China have been reported. The objective of this study is to establish comprehensive exergy-based characterization model for life cycle assessment, and to apply this model to steel production.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out to quantify and analyze the environmental impact and benefit caused by the utilization of coal gangue as alternative raw material and fuel in cement clinker production. The optimal dosage of coal gangue was determined by comparing among different mixing amount scenarios and Portland cement clinker (clinker without adding any waste) considering the phases of coal gangue disposal, transportation, and raw meal grinding and clinker calcination. The results showed that: 1) After adding coal gangue to the raw meal, almost all the considered environmental impacts of cement clinker including human toxicity potential, photochemical smog potential, especially abiotic depletion potential decreased significantly. However, global warming potential and acidification potential increased slightly in comparison with Portland cement clinker. 2) Compared with the Portland cement clinker, the single environmental indicator reduced after adding coal gangue and the indicator decreased gradually with the dosage increasing.

The global warming of cement concrete pavement from raw material extraction to road construction was analyzed by the method of life cycle assessment. The characterization results showed that the procedure of producing material is the most important stage to emit greenhouse gas and it accounts for 98.5% of the global warming potential that caused by the material production and construction stage. For the materials used in different structure layers, surface layer is the biggest impact of greenhouse and accounts for 68.9% of the total impact caused by material used in constructing pavement. Therefore in the future, by using recycled materials or more environmental materials will be a good way to reduce environment impact.

The environmental loads are made due to the natural resources and fossil fuels use and pollutants emissions by Chinese thermal power industry. To explore the realistic coal-fired power generation and its denitration strategies, the input and output of coal-fired power generation in China were identified and quantified. The scope of this paper is defined in the boundary of coal-fired electricity generation system all over China. The methodology follows the principal of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. The functional unit is “1 kWh of electricity generated”. The inventory data of Chinese coal-fired power generation in 2009 without denitration technology applications were measured. The output data include the CO, N2O, CH4, CO2, NOx, PM and SO2 emissions. NOx emissions are the major contributor of acidification and photochemical in China. To avoid catastrophic environmental damages, the air pollution especially NOx emissions from coal-fired power plants are advised to be cut. For scenario analysis, in the assumption of 100%of selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) technology applications, China still has denitration potential. In the coming several decades, the SNCR technology will be decisive for the Chinese coal-fired power industry to reach deeper NOx emission reductions. However, the reduction agents of ammonia and urea usage bring ammonia slip, and extra natural resource and fossils consumption. The urea use also brings extra CO2 emissions. This limits the applications of SNCR technology to reduce NOx emissions.

The carbon emission and energy consumption of using slag as a secondary raw material in cement production was quantified and analyzed in this study. Moreover, the carbon emission reduction and energy saving potential of slag-based cement (SBC) production were identified based on the comparative analysis between SBC and traditional Portland cement (TPC). The results showed that the carbon emission of SBC is about 6.73%, which was lower than that of TPC. Compared with TPC, the energy consumption of SBC is slightly increased by 2.05%. In addition, it was found that the combustion of coal and the power generation were the main sources for carbon emission in the life cycle of slag utilization, which account for 83.39% and 10.16% of the total carbon emission. Therefore, reducing the consumption of energy and increasing the recovery rate of waste heat in cement production were the most effective methods to improve the environmental performance of SBC. In addition, the improvement potential analysis was carried out for SBC. The results indicated that if the recovery rate of waste heat could reach to that of the international advanced level (15.6%), the carbon emission and energy consumption of SBC would be reduced by about 2.20% and 5.71%, respectively. If the proportion of renewable energy utilizationin power generation increased to that of the average international level, the carbon emission and energy consumption of SBC would be declined by 5.26% and 9.35% respectively.

This study investigated the effects of fermentation product containing phytase (FPP) that was fermented using waste vinegar residue (WVR) as substrate from Aspergillus ficuumNTG-23 on productive performance, egg quality, and phosphorus apparent metabolism of laying hens. First, 375 22-wk-old Jinghong hens were allocated into 5 treatments (5 replicates of 15 hens each) in an 8-wk experiment for evaluating the parameters of productive performance, egg quality, serum, and tibia. Experimental diets contained 4% FPP and 96% corn-soybean diet. The levels of dicalcium phosphate (DCP) were 1.34, 1.01, 0.67, 0.34 and 0%. Next, thirty 31-wk-old Jinghong hens were fed 5 types of diets for evaluating phosphorous apparent metabolism rate. Egg productive rate, egg weight, feed conversion ratio, Haugh unit, egg albumen height, serum calcium, tibia ash, tibia ash calcium and tibia breaking strength were not different significantly among 5 treatments. The significant difference of average daily feed intake was not appeared when the DCP content of corn-soybean-FPP diet was reduced to 0.67%; the eggshell hardness, eggshell thickness and serum phosphorus were not reduced significantly until the DCP content of corn-soybean-FPP diet was reduced to 0.34%. The yolk color was improved when the laying hens fed deficient DCP corn-soybean-FPP diet. A 22.14% reduction in excreta phosphorus was observed when the laying hens fed low phosphorus (0.67% DCP) corn-soybean-FPP diet. A 30% elevation of phosphorus apparent metabolism rate was obtained when the DCP content of corn-soybean-FPP diet was decreased from 1.34 to 1.01%. The reducing cost of layer diet was totalized about 120 CNY 1 000 kg−1diet when the content of DCP was 0.67% in corn-soybean-FPP diet. These results indicated that FPP could be applied in laying hen as a potential, cost-effective and rational application of WVR.

The goal of this paper is to conduct a life cycle inventory (LCI) case study for marble mining in China. The scope focuses on the whole life of marble mining. The functional unit is “per cubic meter of marble block”. The LCI data, including the input of energy and natural resources and the output of pollutant emissions, were collected on-site. The LCI results show that if the waste quarries could be recovered after the exploration, the environmental damages from the marble decorative materials would be much less. The environmental impacts of fresh water consumptions are also discussed. Some suggestions and recommendations on how to improve the environmental performance, at the same time the marble materials can be produced to support the increasing sales, are made. In the future, the land use and the mine recovery should be discussed.

Based on life cycle assessment, analysis of energy consumption and other environment load by steel production in Chinese typical iron and steel industry was carried out. The process accounted for the most environment load was found by studying the different processes in steel production route. The results indicate that the most important process is blast furnace (BF) which is the major factor of CO2 and CO emissions, and contributes most to globe warming potential (GWP) and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP).

Aluminum is an essential material for the construction and development of national economy, however the GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused by its production have been noticed by China’s government gradually. In this study, the life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions caused by the production of primary aluminum in different years in China were calculated, and the correlation between GHG emissions and some important factors i.e. resource consumption and procedure energy consumption was analyzed. The final results show that for GHG emissions, electricity is the major contributor that accounts for 68.5% of the total, followed by the emissions of anode effect and calcination of limestone, which accounts for 7.9% and 6.8% respectively, and the percentages other factors account for less than 6%. The results also show that the calcination of limestone, combustion of coal gas and consumption of electricity are the three main factors which have the largest correlation degree with GHG emissions, and their correlation degrees are 0.96, 0.94 and 0.90 respectively. Therefore, decreasing the consumption of coal gas and improving the efficiency of the calcination of limestone are effective ways to decrease the GHG emissions of primary aluminum production.

Although outer wall thermal insulation technology is an effective measure for building energy-saving, the production of thermal insulation materials causes serious impacts on environment. In the present investigation the resource, energy consumption and environmental emission of the two kinds of thermal insulation materials were analyzed, from the acquisition of raw materials to production process based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The result show that life cycle energy consumption of rock wool board is 415MJ per functional unit, proximately twice of EPS board’s (220MJ). Overall, environmental impact indicators caused by rock wool board is more serious than EPS.

Transportation is an important part of industrial production systems, with serious energy consumption and environmental pollution. In this study, environment impact of road transportation, river freight in the Yangtze River, and railway transportation was established and analyzed by life cycle assessment method. The analysis results show that CO2 is the largest emission of pollutants for freight transport in China. abiotic depletion potential (ADP) of electric locomotives significantly lower than the other five kinds of shipping methods, only 3.2% of diesel locomotive, 3.9% of the Yangtze barges fleet; 1.2% of the Yangtze Cargo vessel, 0.2% of heavy-duty trucks and 0.1% of light-duty trucks. The results show that accomplishing the same cargo turnover, light-duty truck has the largest environmental impact, while the Electric locomotive freight has the minimum environmental impact. Although the environmental impact of river freight transport is greater than rail transport, but it is far less than road transport.

The energy consumption of window accounts for nearly half of buildings. The purpose of this study is to compare the environmental impact of plastic windows and aluminum alloy windows production, including resource and energy consumption, waste emission. The result shows that energy consumption of plastic window production is only 0.24 times of aluminum alloy window production, and the overall environmental impact of the former is 30% of the later. This study is a quantitative description of energy consumption and environmental impact of two windows production pattern, which intends to fill the blank in LCA field of windows in China.