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Fires in waste treatment facilities have significant social, economic, and environmental implications. Factors such as self-heating of lithium-ion batteries, thermal runaway, friction, human activities, technical errors, and unfavorable storage conditions contribute to these fires. High-risk categories include illegal dumping sites, recycle collection stations, and wood-related facilities. The frequency of fires in waste treatment facilities and the emergence of new waste types have led to public discontent. Regulatory challenges and oversight difficulties pose further obstacles. This study analyzes fire incidents in Kaohsiung City’s waste treatment facilities over the past five years, exploring their causes, regulatory frameworks, and practical challenges. Valuable insights and recommendations are provided to enhance fire safety and risk assessment. These measures aim to mitigate fires’ environmental and facility consequences and their impact. Prioritizing fire prevention and reducing potential economic, social, and environmental consequences are crucial for improving fire safety in waste treatment facilities. Addressing these challenges and prioritizing the safety and sustainability of the waste treatment industry is imperative.

Over the past decade, lead halide perovskite materials have emerged as a promising candidate for third-generation solar cells and have progressed extremely rapidly. The tunable band gap, strong absorption, high power conversion efficiency, and low cost of perovskite solar cells makes them highly competitive compared to current commercialized silicon-based and thin film-based photovoltaic technologies. However, commercial products unavoidably result in large amounts of waste and end-of-life devices which can cause serious environmental impacts. To address this issue, recycle and recovery technologies of perovskite solar cells should be researched and developed proactively. In this review, the development of perovskite solar cells and their necessary materials are first introduced. Subsequently, the potential environmental impacts of perovskite solar cells are discussed, including their stability and lifetime, use of critical materials (i.e., indium, tin, and lead), and toxicity. Accordingly, the present recycle and recovery technologies are reviewed, providing information and recommendations of key strategies for recycling and recovering. Finally, future works and strategies for recycling and recovering perovskite solar cells are proposed.

Defence‐related LsGRP1 is a leaf‐specific plant class II glycine‐rich protein (GRP) involved in salicylic acid‐induced systemic resistance against grey mould caused by necrotrophic Botrytis elliptica in lily (Lilium) cultivar Stargazer. The C‐terminal region of LsGRP1 (LsGRP1C) can inhibit fungal growth in vitro via a mechanism of inducing fungal apoptosis programmed cell death (PCD). In this study, the role of LsGRP1 in induced defence mechanism was investigated using LsGRP1‐silenced Stargazer lily and LsGRP1‐transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana. LsGRP1 silencing in lily was found to slightly inhibit plant growth and greatly increase the susceptibility to B. elliptica by suppressing callose deposition and early reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. In contrast, LsGRP1‐transgenic Arabidopsis showed higher resistance to Botrytis cinerea and also to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 as compared to the wild type, accompanied with the enhancement of callose deposition and ROS accumulation. Additionally, LsGRP1 silencing increased plant cell death caused by B. elliptica secretion and reduced pathogen‐associated molecular pattern (PAMP)‐triggered defence activation in Stargazer lily. Consistently, LsGRP1 expression boosted PAMP‐triggered defence responses and effector recognition‐induced hypersensitive response in Arabidopsis. Moreover, fungal apoptosis PCD triggered by LsGRP1 in an LsGRP1C‐dependent manner was demonstrated by leaf infiltration with LsGRP1C‐containing recombinant proteins in Stargazer lily. Based on these results, we presume that LsGRP1 plays roles in plant defence via functioning as a pathogen‐inducible switch for plant innate immune activation and acting as a fungal apoptosis PCD inducer to combat pathogen attack., LsGRP1 from Lilium exhibits a dual function in plant defence, which involves innate immune activation and fungal apoptosis induction, to protect plants from necrotrophic and hemibiotrophic pathogens.

The multilayer 1T-TaSe2 is successfully synthesized by annealing a Se-implanted Ta thin film on the SiO2/Si substrate. Material analyses confirm the 1T (octahedral) structure and the quasi-2D nature of the prepared TaSe2. Temperature-dependent resistivity reveals that the multilayer 1T-TaSe2 obtained by our method undergoes a commensurate charge-density wave (CCDW) transition at around 500 K. This synthesis process has been applied to synthesize MoSe2 and HfSe2 and expanded for synthesis of one more transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) material. In addition, the main issue of the process, that is, the excess metal capping on the TMD layers, is solved by the reduction of thickness of the as-deposited metal thin film in this work.

Non-layered e-Ti2N with a work function of ∼4.75 eV, synthesized by a rapid process assisted by N2 plasma immersion, is successfully applied as the anode material of lithium-ion batteries with good performance; it exhibits discharge capacity of ∼450 mA h g−1, which is close to the theoretical value, coulombic efficiencies of >85%, and capacity retentions (≥80%).

With the dramatic increase of photovoltaic (PV) module installation in solar energy-based industries, the methods for recovering waste solar generators should be emphasized as the backup of the PV market for environmental protection. Crystalline-silicon accounts for most of the worldwide PV market and it contains valuable materials such as high purity of silicon (Si), silver (Ag), copper (Cu), tin (Sn), and lead (Pb). This study can provide an efficient recycling process for valuable materials resourced from waste crystalline-silicon PV module, including Si in the PV cell, and Ag, Cu, Pb, Sn, in PV ribbon. As tempered glass and Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) resin were removed, the module was separated into two materials, PV ribbon and PV cell. For PV cell purification, Si with purity at 99.84% was recovered by removing impurities such as aluminum (Al) and Ag by two-step leaching and dissolving the impurities. For PV ribbon recovering, purified metal or metal oxide was obtained through the processes of leaching/polishing, extraction, and chemical precipitation. In the polishing process, 99.5% of copper wire was collected. The purities of final products are 99.7% for CuO, 99.47% for PbO, 99.68% for SnO2, and 98.85% for Ag respectively.

Background and study aims To investigate the role of low-concentration TRAIL on HBV replication and expression. Material and methods MTT assay was performed to determine the minimum concentrations of TRAIL protein in HepG2 cell apoptosis. HepG2 cells were transfected by HBV replication plasmid pHBV4.1. After the treatment with low concentration of TRAIL, the culture supernatant was collected to detect HBsAg and HBeAg by ELISA. Proteins were extracted from the resulted cells, followed by total RNA and HBV DNA intermediate replication. Southern Blot and Northern Blot were carried out to detect HBV RNA and HBV DNA replication intermediates, respectively. RT-PCR and Western Blot were carried out to detect gene and protein expressions for HNF4α, PPARα, and RXRα, respectively. Results 50 ng/ml of TRAIL protein led to significant decline on the secretions of HBsAg and HBeAg. Expression levels of HBV RNA and HBV DNA replication intermediates were significantly decreased too. In addition, gene and protein expressions of HNF4α, PPARα and RXRα also dropped, especially for PPARα whose expressions significantly decreased. Conclusion TRAIL could inhibit HBV replication and expression by downregulating the expressions of liver-enriched transcription factors HNF4α, PPARα, and RXRα.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection triggers the production of TRAIL, suggesting that TRAIL may play a role in liver injury after HBV infection. However, it remains unclear whether TRAIL expression in liver tissue correlates with the extent of liver injury caused by HBV infection. The aim of this article was to investigate the correlation of TRAIL expression and disease severity.Liver biopsy specimens were collected from 71 patients with different outcomes of HBV infection, including 25 cases of chronic hepatitis B (CHB), 18 cases of severe hepatitis B (SHB), and 28 cases of liver cirrhosis (LC). Besides, specimens from 33 healthy individuals without detectable liver diseases were used as negative control (NC). The expression of TRAIL was measured by immunohistochemistry.Expression of TRAIL in the HBV-infected patients was higher than that in the NC (P0.001). Among the patients, TRAIL expression in the ones with CHB was significantly higher than that in NC (P0.001). However, there was no statistically significant difference between patients with SHB and NC or between the ones with LC and NC (P=0.067 and P=0.178, respectively). Moreover, TRAIL expression in patients with CHB was higher than that in patients with SHB or LC (P0.001 for both), whereas no statistically significant difference was observed between patients with SHB and the ones with LC (P=0.511).TRAIL is involved in the inflammatory and immunoregulatory response after HBV infection. However, there was no significant correlation between expression of TRAIL and the extent of liver injury.

Hepatocyte nuclear factors 4 alpha (HNF4alpha) and 3 beta (HNF3beta) are members of a group of liver-enriched transcription factors (LETFs) that play important roles in regulating the replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV). Using cell culture and animal models, we showed that HNF4alpha supports HBV replication in nonhepatic cells and HNF3beta inhibits HBV replication. However, the expression of HNF4alpha and HNF3beta in the liver tissue of chronic HBV-infected patients and the relationship between the levels of HNF4alpha and HNF3beta and HBV replication are unclear. In this study, liver biopsy specimens from 86 chronic HBV-infected patients were collected. The expression levels of HNF4alpha, HNF3beta, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) were detected by an immunohistochemical technique and the level of HBV DNA was checked by in situ hybridization with serial sections from liver biopsy tissue samples. We show here that samples with higher levels of HNF4alpha expression also have higher levels of HBsAg, HBcAg and HBV DNA. In contrast, in samples with higher levels of HNF3beta expression, levels of HBsAg, HBcAg and HBV DNA were lower. There was a positive correlation between HNF4alpha expression and HBV replication, and a negative correlation between HNF3beta expression and HBV replication, in the liver of chronic HBV-infected patients. This suggests that HNF4alpha and HNF3beta likely participate in HBV replication in patients with HBV infection, or that HBV replication may somehow influence the expression of HNF4alpha and HNF3beta in the liver.