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Paper mill sludge (PMS) is featured with a high content of cellulose and hemicellulose, and using its characteristics to make paperboard can achieve a high-value utilization of PMS, which has attracted growing interest. In this study, currently prevalent landfill, incineration technologies (generating heat and electricity by incineration), and three paperboard technologies (medium density fiberboard, pulp board, and corrugated paper) were evaluated and compared via life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methods. LCA results show that the PMS-to-pulp board outperforms others with an energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) value of - 2.86 × 10 -8 , while the landfill exhibits the highest overall environmental impact with an ECER value of 4.80 × 10 -9 . LCC results reveal that the PMS-to-pulp board delivers the highest economic profit with $257.357, while the landfill is the lowest with $ - 35.63. The PMS paperboard technologies are more economically friendly than the incineration technologies due to additional electricity/steam consumption during the PMS pre-drying process in incineration. In addition, different scenarios were set up to explore national GHG emission reduction potential by increasing paperboard technologies application rate and reducing the proportion of landfill and incineration. The scenario analysis suggests that replacing 90% of landfill and incineration ratio with PMS paperboard technologies could tremendously improve the overall emission reduction performance with - 9.08 × 10 10 kg CO 2 eq. This result indicates that the PMS treatment technology transformation has a significant favorable impact on the achievement of the "carbon neutrality" target., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China's pulp and paper industry (CPPI) has been always the main carbon emission source in recent years. However, the analysis on influencing factors of carbon emissions from this industry is insufficient. To address the issue, the CO 2 emissions from CPPI are estimated in the period of 2005-2019, the driving factors of CO 2 emissions are investigated by the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, the decoupling state of economic growth and CO 2 emissions is determined by Tapio decoupling model, and finally, future CO 2 emissions are predicted under four scenarios by the STIRPAT model to explore the potential of carbon peaking. The results show that CPPI exhibits a rapid increase and a fluctuating downward trend in CO 2 emissions during the period of 2005-2013 and 2014-2019, respectively. The main promoting and inhibiting factors to the increase of CO 2 emission are per capita industrial output value and energy intensity, respectively. There are five decoupling states of CO 2 emissions and economic growth during the study period, and the CO 2 emissions exhibit a weak decoupling state with the industrial output value growth in most years of the study period. It is very difficult to realize the carbon peaking goal by 2030 under the baseline and fast development scenarios. Therefore, efficient low carbon and strong low-carbon development policies are necessary and urgent for the realization of carbon peaking goal and the sustainable development of CPPI., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Introduction: In this study, we explore the identity of a range of polyfluorinated surfactants (PFS) used for food contact materials, primarily to impart oil and water repellency on paper and board. PFS are of interest, as they can be precursors of poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), of which several are persistent and are found worldwide in human blood and in the environment., Materials and Methods: To determine the elemental composition of PFS, we combined information from patents, chemical suppliers and analyses of industrial blends using ultra performance liquid chromatography-negative electrospray ionisation quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry., Results: At a high pH of 9.7, both non-ionic and anionic PFS were ionised and were recognised by negative mass defects of exact masses, and neutral fragment losses of n × 20 or n × 100 Da. More than 115 molecular structures were found in industrial blends from the EU, US and China, belonging to the groups of polyfluoroalkyl-mono- and di-ester phosphates (monoPAPS, diPAPS and S-diPAPS), -ethoxylates, -acrylates, -amino acids, -sulfonamide phosphates and -thio acids, together with residuals and synthesis byproducts. In addition, a number of starting materials such as perfluorooctane sulfonamide N-alkyl esters were analysed. Di- and trialkylated PAPS and S-diPAPS were found in migrates from European food contact materials., Conclusion: This study highlights the need to monitor for more types of PFS in order to map the sources of PFAS in humans and the environment.