Newswise — ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —When Sandia scientists Ryan Davis and Nathan Bays set out to find a better way to absorb and degrade PFAS in water sources, they kept running into the same issue: Detecting the chemicals in samples took too long.

So, they came up with their own solution.

They’ve developed a faster, cheaper way to test for PFAS.

The problem of PFAS and solving it

PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are commonly called forever chemicals because they don’t break down naturally in the environment. They can move through soil and water and build up in wildlife and humans.

Ryan, a chemist, has spent years developing technologies that can eliminate PFAS on both large and small scales. But that research has been time-consuming. Depending on the concentration, it can take hours to days to detect PFAS in a single sample.

“A common complaint of ours and others who are doing PFAS analysis is that it’s slow and can be costly depending on the technology,” Ryan said.

Traditional testing processes requires repetitive extraction, concentration and processing.

 It starts with a liter or more of liquid, suspected to contain PFAS. The liquid is forced through a cartridge to extract the PFAS. The collected PFAS is then added to a smaller volume of water, and the process is repeated with new cartridges until enough PFAS concentrated for detection.  

The process is not only time-consuming but also costly. Cartridges can cost several hundred dollars apiece.

That process not only slows research and development but puts testing out of reach for the average person.

“We want a technology that can be broadly accessible, not only for researchers but for the broader public and government,” Ryan said. “It will allow regulators to track PFAS in the environment, and for people to test their own tap water.”  

A new way to detect PFAS

Ryan and Sandia postdoctoral researcher Nathan Bays have developed that technology.

The pair stumbled onto the approach while experimenting with a mass spectrometer and a technique called desorption electrospray ionization, or DESI. The process uses electrically charged droplets sprayed at the surface of an adsorbent that ionizes only the target chemical, not the adsorbent itself.

 Bays and Ryan said the results were unexpected.

“We had toyed with the idea of using DESI to confirm the presence of PFAS on adsorbent materials,” Ryan said. “When we did some preliminary testing, not only did we confirm the presence of PFAS, but we noticed that we got results well beyond our standard analysis.”

“At this point, it became very clear we had an opportunity to push further on this work,” Bays said. “One step at a time, we went from just being able to see PFAS at parts-per-million—to levels at parts-per-billion, and finally low parts-per-trillion.”

Ryan and Bays’ technique starts with an adsorbent about the size of a Rice Krispy. The adsorbent is placed in a solution for testing. Three minutes later, it is removed and placed in front of a mass spectrometer where it is sprayed with electrically charged droplets. The droplets remove PFAS from the adsorbent and carry it into the mass spectrometer, where it is analyzed for PFAS concentration and type.

The entire process can take as little as five minutes.

“It’s one of those outcomes that wasn’t exactly planned as we had initially envisioned it,” Ryan said. “It was surprising to see the concentration of PFAS so clearly. That may be why it hadn’t been done before. It was just unexpected.”

The pair has published details of the process in hopes it can be commercialized for widespread use. They also hope it can be developed to tackle other environmental pollutants besides PFAS and used for environmental analytics and testing such as off- gassing measurements tied to Sandia’s nuclear deterrence work.   

“It could help researchers understand the system’s environment and the off-gassing of chemicals in certain work,” Ryan said. “While our first phase worked with liquid, our more recent work has delved into the gas phase.”

Why they do it

Both Ryan and Nathan are passionate about this technology and PFAS remediation. Developing the new test is just a small part of the broader work they do aimed at reducing PFAS pollution.

“I’ve been working on this specific project since I joined Sandia two and a half years ago,” Nathan said. “My whole career has evolved around environmental remediation, so this was a natural fit. I’m a big outdoors person. My wife and I like to go out in nature, and we don’t like to see our world be polluted like this.”

One of the biggest focuses of PFAS remediation has been at U.S. Air Force bases, where soil and groundwater have been impacted by the long-term use of firefighting foam.

Ryan’s big goal, however, is to give people more power over their health. “More and more research shows that PFAS can have negative outcomes at even low concentrations, so detecting at those low concentrations is key,” Ryan said. “We don’t want families to worry about whether they can afford groceries this week or test their water for safety.”

Catalytic treatment of industrial pollutants has long faced a practical bottleneck. Noble metal nanoparticles are highly active, but they often tend to aggregate, reducing the number of active usable reaction sites. Traditional methods for producing polymer-supported catalysts can also be slow, multistep, and dependent on toxic reagents, surfactants, or poorly controlled batch conditions. Meanwhile, 4-nitrophenol remains a hazardous pollutant commonly found in industrial wastewater, and existing catalytic systems often suffer from limited surface area, uneven active-species distribution, and inefficient mass transfer. Based on these challenges, in-depth research is needed on controllable catalyst supports and continuous-flow catalytic platforms.

In a study published (DOI: 10.1038/s41378-026-01176-6) in 2026 in Microsystems & Nanoengineering, Li Ma and colleagues from Xi’an Jiaotong University and collaborating institutions reported a spiral-microchannel platform for continuously producing morphology-tailored polystyrene microspheres loaded with Ag, Ag-Au, or Ag-Pt nanoparticles. Corresponding author Nanjing Hao and the team showed that tuning the structure of the polymer carrier could directly improve catalytic behavior in the reduction of 4-nitrophenol.

The researchers began with uniform solid polystyrene seeds averaging 1.48 μm in diameter, then used water-ethanol and water-toluene systems to drive them into hollow, dimpled, bowl-like, and open-hole forms. In one striking transformation, unsymmetrical dimples evolved into open-hole structures within 5 minutes after introducing a small amount of toluene. These evolving microspheres were then passed through a spiral microreactor, where rapid microscale mixing enabled metal precursors to form and anchor onto the polymer surface in minutes rather than hours. Hollow and open-hole structures provided larger surface areas and confined microenvironments, helping load more nanoparticles and improve mass transfer. The system produced evenly distributed Ag, Ag-Pt, and Ag-Au nanoparticles, while also reducing aggregation. Among all tested catalysts, open-hole Ag-Pt microspheres performed best, reaching a reaction rate constant of 1.73 × 10^^-2 s^{^-1} and an activity parameter of 692 s^^-1·g^^-1, while maintaining catalytic activity over five reuse cycles.

The study suggests that catalyst performance can be engineered not only by changing the metal itself, but also by reshaping the support beneath it. By controlling carrier morphology, the team was able to regulate nanoparticle immobilization, improve accessibility of active sites, and strengthen confined synergistic catalysis. In this sense, the microreactor becomes more than a synthesis tool: it becomes a way to manufacture catalytic function with precision.

The implications go beyond a single wastewater reaction. A scalable continuous-flow strategy for robust bimetallic catalysts could be valuable in environmental remediation, fine chemical synthesis, and other industrial processes where fast mixing, stable active sites, and reusable catalytic materials are essential. Just as importantly, the study turns a toxic pollutant into a useful product, pointing toward a broader model of greener chemistry in which waste treatment and value creation can happen together.

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References

DOI

10.1038/s41378-026-01176-6

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-026-01176-6

Funding information

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFC3904301), the Key R&D Program of Shaanxi Province (2024GX-YBXM-471), the Qin Chuang Yuan Talent Program (2021QCYRC4-33), and the Distinguished Overseas Young Scholars of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (GYKP032).

About Microsystems & Nanoengineering

Microsystems & Nanoengineering is an online-only, open access international journal devoted to publishing original research results and reviews on all aspects of Micro and Nano Electro Mechanical Systems from fundamental to applied research. The journal is published by Springer Nature in partnership with the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, supported by the State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology.

Newswise — By comparing natural microbial adaptation with targeted bioaugmentation using an antibiotic-degrading strain, the study reveals how biodegradation capacity fundamentally reshapes microbial succession, stability, and resilience under sustained antibiotic exposure.

Environmental risk assessments often judge antibiotics solely by concentration and intrinsic toxicity, assuming uniform microbial responses. However, microbial communities actively shape contaminant fate, particularly when they include antibiotic-degrading organisms. Sulfamethoxazole (SMX), a common sulfonamide found in wastewater and surface waters, illustrates this complexity. Even at low levels, SMX can suppress sensitive taxa, disrupt community structure, and impair essential functions such as nutrient removal. Yet some bacteria possess specialized genes that enzymatically inactivate SMX, reducing antibiotic pressure for the broader community. How such biodegradation capacity governs microbial succession and community stability remains insufficiently understood.

A study (DOI:10.48130/biocontam-0025-0016) published in Biocontaminant on 12 December 2025 by Bin Liang’s team, Harbin Institute of Technology, demonstrates that antibiotic-degrading bacteria act as keystone protectors that mitigate antibiotic stress, stabilize microbial community succession, and enhance ecosystem resilience, highlighting biodegradation capacity as a critical determinant of environmental risk.

Using a controlled sequencing batch reactor framework, the study first isolated and characterized an SMX-degrading bacterium from activated sludge by continuous subculture with SMX as the sole carbon source, then tested how degrader-enabled biodegradation reshapes community succession by inoculating the strain under defined antibiotic stress and tracking community dynamics with SMX degradation assays, ex situ degradation tests, and 16S rRNA sequencing across multiple reactor phases. The isolated strain, Paenarthrobacter sp. M5 (100% 16S rRNA similarity to P. ureafaciens), fully degraded 30 mg/L SMX within 10 h, producing equimolar 3-amino-5-methylisoxazole and carrying the key gene sadA; mechanistically, a SadA/SadC two-component system drove ipso-hydroxylation and cleavage of the -C–S–N- bond, yielding non-antibacterial intermediates (including p-aminophenol that could be further metabolized for growth). Four reactor treatments were established—NN (no SMX), SN (natural adaptation with SMX), NM (M5 inoculated without SMX), and SM (pre-adaptation: M5 inoculated with SMX)—revealing that SN communities acquired biodegradation gradually (over ~28 cycles at 2 mg/L SMX), whereas SM communities showed immediate, efficient degradation after inoculation; with increasing SMX loads, both SMX-exposed groups ultimately achieved complete removal, indicating inducible biodegradation under sustained selection. When SMX exposure was paused and then reintroduced at high levels, functional recovery ranked SN > SM > NM, while NN showed ~70% degradation with high replicate variability, underscoring how evolutionary history governs resilience. Ex situ assays reinforced these trends: SN improved to 36.3%, 62.3%, and 100% removal at 2, 5, and 10 mg/L SMX, SM remained consistently complete across phases, NN stayed low (12.2%–16.6%), and NM declined (30.5%→13.4%), highlighting antibiotics as the key driver sustaining degrader colonization. 16S/OTU analyses showed a shared core microbiome across all groups, but shared OTUs dropped sharply during restructuring (from 1,035 to ~440) before stabilizing (~533–578), while α-diversity patterns revealed that slower biodegradation in SN retarded succession and preserved higher diversity during T2–T4, whereas efficient degradation in SM buffered antibiotic stress and restored “regular” successional dynamics. Multivariate statistics (ADONIS/MRPP) confirmed dose-dependent SMX-driven divergence in SN versus NN, but minimal structural differences between SM and NN through most phases, indicating that bioaugmentation-mediated biodegradation can protect community structure from antibiotic perturbation.

These findings have direct relevance for wastewater treatment and environmental management. Antibiotic-degrading bacteria can stabilize treatment performance by protecting key microbial functions from antibiotic disruption. Targeted bioaugmentation or monitoring of native degrader populations could reduce the risk of treatment failure and limit conditions that favor the spread of antibiotic resistance.

###

References

DOI

10.48130/biocontam-0025-0016

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.48130/biocontam-0025-0016

Funding Information

The study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52322007), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Grant No. 2023B1515020077), and Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (Grant No. JCYJ20240813105125034).

About Biocontaminant

Biocontaminant is a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to advancing fundamental and applied research on biological contaminants across diverse environments and systems. The journal serves as an innovative, efficient, and professional forum for global researchers to disseminate findings in this rapidly evolving field.

Newswise — Algae blooms make a pond’s surface shine in mesmerizing green hues. But if the microorganisms responsible are cyanobacteria, they can also release toxins that harm humans and wildlife alike. So, a team reporting in ACS ES&T Water has designed a “set it and forget it” system for distributing algaecide using specialized buoys tethered at the site of a bloom. In tests, the buoys removed nearly all cyanobacteria without the need for frequent reapplication.

Algae blooms occur when extra nutrients in the water — likely from fertilizer runoff — cause tiny microorganisms like algae and cyanobacteria to proliferate. In 2014, one such algae bloom in Lake Erie near Toledo, Ohio, rendered drinking water unsafe for hundreds of thousands of residents. And now, a team of researchers from the University of Toledo are looking to create an algaecide treatment system that puts a stop to a bloom before it has even started. The team, including Umberto Kober, Hanieh Barikbin, Youngwoo Seo, Yakov Lapitsky and colleagues, designed a system that releases algaecide steadily over a period of weeks or months, making it less expensive and more efficient than existing options that require frequent reapplication.

The team constructed small, medium, and large-sized buoys out of PVC pipes, forming either a “T” or cross shape. Hydrogel disks were inserted into the pipe openings to control the diffusion of the liquid algaecide into the surrounding water. The buoys were then filled with a commercial hydrogen peroxide-based algaecide, which, upon immersion, slowly diffused through the hydrogel disks. The buoys were also engineered so that once the algaecide was gone, the buoy fell to its side, visually indicating that a refill was needed.

To test their performance, the small, algaecide-loaded buoys were put in a beaker with 1 liter of cyanobacteria-containing water collected from Lake Erie and monitored for two weeks. Every day a small portion of water was replaced with new lake water to ensure the buoys were continually exposed to fresh cyanobacteria. This way, the team could evaluate whether the buoys provided sustained algicidal activity rather than killing the cyanobacteria early in the process. Researchers found that the cyanobacteria were almost entirely eliminated within a week, and other microbes remained largely unscathed. Researchers estimate that their buoys could reliably release algaecide for at least four consecutive release cycles, each lasting 35 days.

Though further research is needed, including enhancements to prevent microbe growth on the buoy’s surface, the researchers say that this work overcomes challenges in sustained and targeted algaecide treatment.

“If successfully scaled up, this concept could enable early mitigation of harmful algal blooms without the need for labor-intensive repeated algaecide applications,” says Lapitsky.

The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The algaecide used in these experiments was provided by the SePRO Corporation, an algaecide manufacturer.

Authors Yakov Lapitsky, Umberto Kober and Youngwoo Seo have filed a patent application on this research.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Newswise — By comparing sulfuric and boric acid absorption systems, they found sulfuric acid delivers higher recovery rates and reduces isotope fractionation, even at low concentrations. Field applications successfully distinguished emissions from cropland, livestock, orchards, and vegetables, improving the accuracy of ammonia source identification.

NH₃ is the most important alkaline gas in the atmosphere and a major contributor to air pollution. It reacts with sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NOₓ) to form ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate, key components of fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) that threaten human health, ecosystems, and climate balance. Because agricultural activities dominate NH₃ emissions, accurate source identification is essential for effective air-quality management. δ¹⁵N provides a powerful tool for distinguishing among fertilizers, livestock waste, and other sources. However, reliable isotope tracing depends on precise sampling. Common acidic absorbents used in passive collection may introduce isotope fractionation, particularly at low concentrations, highlighting the need for systematic methodological evaluation.

A study (DOI: 10.48130/nc-0025-0017) published in Nitrogen Cycling on 16 January 2026 by Chaopu Ti’s team, Chinese Academy of Sciences, establishes a more accurate and reliable method for nitrogen isotope analysis of atmospheric ammonia, improving source identification and supporting effective air pollution control strategies.

To evaluate the suitability of different acidic absorbents for NH₃ recovery and δ¹⁵N analysis, researchers conducted controlled laboratory experiments using (NH₄)₂SO₄ and certified N isotope reference materials (USGS-25, USGS-26, and IAEA-N1) as volatilization substrates, each with an initial NH₄⁺–N mass of 2.00 mg. NH₃ released during reaction was passively captured using sponge samplers containing either sulfuric acid or boric acid solutions, and recovery efficiency, reproducibility (CV), and isotope conversion performance were systematically assessed across NH₄⁺ concentrations of 20–100 μmol L⁻¹. Results showed that sulfuric acid achieved consistently high NH₃ recovery rates (95.98–96.88%, mean 96.43%, CV 0.47%) for (NH₄)₂SO₄ and similarly high recoveries for isotope standards (96.03–99.09%), indicating excellent precision and minimal isotopic bias. In contrast, boric acid produced significantly lower recovery rates (80.47–86.48%, mean 83.90%) and greater variability, suggesting potential isotope fractionation, especially at low concentrations. Conversion curves between δ¹⁵N–NH₄⁺ and δ¹⁵N–N₂O demonstrated that sulfuric acid maintained slopes close to the theoretical 0.5 across all concentrations, even before correction, reflecting stable isotope conversion and minimal blank effects. Boric acid showed weaker performance at 20 μmol L⁻¹, where slopes deviated markedly from theoretical expectations, though higher concentrations improved accuracy after correction. Accuracy tests confirmed that both methods reproduced certified δ¹⁵N values within ±0.5‰, but sulfuric acid exhibited superior stability and lower impurity interference. Field application of the optimized sulfuric acid method further revealed distinct δ¹⁵N signatures among agricultural NH₃ sources: cropland (−32.87‰), livestock (−36.64‰), orchards (−19.63‰), and vegetables (−24.95‰), with cropland and livestock significantly more depleted in ¹⁵N. Overall, the results demonstrate that 0.1 mol L⁻¹ sulfuric acid provides higher recovery, stronger reproducibility, and more reliable δ¹⁵N determination across variable concentration ranges, making it the preferred absorbent for atmospheric NH₃ source apportionment.

This study identifies sulfuric acid as the optimal absorbent for accurate δ¹⁵N analysis across varying NH₃ concentrations, providing a more reliable framework for ammonia source tracing. Enhanced isotope precision improves quantification of emissions from fertilizers, livestock, and other agricultural sources. The method strengthens nitrogen source apportionment, supports targeted fertilizer management, and offers robust scientific evidence for reducing PM₂.₅ formation and mitigating regional air pollution.

###

References

DOI

10.48130/nc-0025-0017

Original Souce URL

https://doi.org/10.48130/nc-0025-0017

Funding information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42177313), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2023YFC3707402).

About Nitrogen Cycling

Nitrogen Cycling is a multidisciplinary platform for communicating advances in fundamental and applied research on the nitrogen cycle. It is dedicated to serving as an innovative, efficient, and professional platform for researchers in the field of nitrogen cycling worldwide to deliver findings from this rapidly expanding field of science.

Newswise — For decades, global soil moisture monitoring from space has depended on reference datasets. Satellite observations, while indispensable, are rarely used alone; instead, their retrieval algorithms are typically calibrated or constrained using external soil moisture products derived from other satellites, models, or reanalysis systems. This practice has helped stabilize retrievals, but it has also introduced fundamental limitations—reducing transparency, constraining transferability across regions, and complicating long-term consistency as reference products evolve. A growing question in Earth observation is whether this dependence is truly unavoidable.

In a study published (DOI: 10.34133/remotesensing.0939) on January 7, 2026, in the Journal of Remote Sensing, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, and the China Meteorological Administration present PHYsics-based Soil rEflectivity Retrieval (PHYSER)—a physics-based framework for spaceborne GNSS-R soil moisture retrieval. The study demonstrates that global soil moisture can be retrieved independently, without relying on any external soil moisture referenSatellite Observationce products.

A long-standing constraint in satellite soil moisture retrieval

Soil moisture governs the exchange of water, energy, and carbon between the land surface and the atmosphere, influencing droughts, floods, ecosystem functioning, and agricultural productivity. Satellite remote sensing has become essential for monitoring soil moisture at regional to global scales, yet existing approaches face persistent challenges.

Conventional microwave sensors provide physically meaningful measurements but often struggle to balance spatial resolution, temporal coverage, and mission cost. More recently, Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has emerged as a promising alternative. By passively receiving L-band signals continuously transmitted by navigation satellites such as GPS and BeiDou, GNSS-R offers low power consumption, all-weather capability, and dense spatiotemporal sampling.

Despite these advantages, most GNSS-R soil moisture retrieval methods still rely on empirical or semi-empirical relationships calibrated against external soil moisture products. This reliance weakens the physical interpretability of the results and limits their robustness when applied across regions, time periods, or future satellite missions. As GNSS-R constellations rapidly expand, the absence of an independent, physics-based retrieval framework has become a critical bottleneck.

Retrieving soil moisture from physical principles

PHYSER addresses this bottleneck by rethinking GNSS-R soil moisture retrieval from first principles. Rather than fitting GNSS-R observations to existing soil moisture datasets, the framework derives soil moisture directly from the physical interaction between navigation signals and the land surface.

At the core of PHYSER is the accurate reconstruction of soil surface reflectivity from GNSS-R measurements. This is achieved through a stepwise physical correction strategy. First, system-related biases inherent to the GNSS-R “multi-transmitter, single-receiver” observation geometry are corrected using inland water bodies as stable natural calibration targets. This step ensures consistency across different navigation signals and viewing geometries.

Second, land surface effects—particularly vegetation attenuation and surface roughness—are explicitly corrected using a physically based radiative transfer model. These land surface factors are shown to introduce larger uncertainties than satellite system errors, underscoring the importance of addressing them through physics-based correction rather than statistical adjustment.

With these corrections applied, soil reflectivity is transformed into soil permittivity using Fresnel equations. Soil moisture is then retrieved using established dielectric mixing models informed by global soil texture data.

Independent validation across space and ground observations

The PHYSER framework was evaluated using one year of observations from the BuFeng-1 A/B twin satellites, China’s first spaceborne GNSS-R mission designed for technology demonstration. The retrieved soil moisture fields were compared with SMAP satellite products, ERA5-Land reanalysis data, and hundreds of in situ measurement sites worldwide.

Across diverse climatic and land surface conditions, the PHYSER-based retrievals show strong spatial and temporal consistency with these independent datasets. While retrieval errors are comparable to—or only slightly higher than—those of empirical GNSS-R approaches, PHYSER achieves this performance while remaining fully independent of reference soil moisture products.

“This work shows that GNSS-R soil moisture retrieval does not have to be a statistical imitation of other products,” said a member of the research team. “By grounding the retrieval in physics, we gain transparency, robustness, and the ability to extend the method to future missions without retraining against external datasets.”

Implications for future Earth observation missions

As GNSS-R missions multiply and satellite constellations become denser, the need for scalable and physically interpretable retrieval methods is becoming increasingly urgent. PHYSER provides a pathway toward soil moisture monitoring that is not tied to any specific reference product or satellite mission.

The framework has the potential to strengthen climate reanalysis, improve hydrological forecasting, and support agricultural decision-making, particularly in data-sparse regions. With further refinement—especially in densely vegetated environments—PHYSER could help enable operational GNSS-R soil moisture products that complement, and potentially stand alongside, traditional microwave remote sensing systems.

###

References

DOI

10.34133/remotesensing.0939

Original Source URL

https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/remotesensing.0939

Funding information

This study is supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2024QD048), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) project (Grant No. 42471511), the BUFENG-1 Application Extension Program of the China Spacesat Co., Ltd., the ESA-MOST China Dragon5 Programme (ID.58070), the Fengyun Application Pioneering Project (FY-APP-2021.0301), the Beijing Nova Program (Grant Nos. 20230484327 and 20240484540), and the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation project (Grant No. 2024JJ9186).

About Journal of Remote Sensing

The Journal of Remote Sensing, an online-only Open Access journal published in association with AIR-CAS, promotes the theory, science, and technology of remote sensing, as well as interdisciplinary research within earth and information science.

Newswise — As global demand for clothing continues to rise, the textile and apparel industry has become a significant contributor to climate change. In China, the world’s largest textile producer and exporter, rapid urbanization, income growth, and shifting consumption patterns have driven a surge in apparel demand. Traditional studies often focus on factory-level energy use, overlooking emissions embedded in supply chains, exports, and household consumption. This fragmented perspective limits the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. Moreover, fast fashion and short garment lifespans exacerbate resource use and waste. Based on these challenges, there is an urgent need to conduct in-depth research that captures the full carbon footprint of the textile industry and identifies scalable pathways for emission reduction.

Researchers from Nanjing University, in collaboration with international partners, reported (DOI: 10.1007/s11783-026-2109-9) on January 9, 2026, in Engineering Environment a comprehensive analysis of carbon emissions in China’s textile and apparel industry. Using national household consumption data and supply-chain input–output modeling, the team examined emission trends from 2000 to 2018 and projected future mitigation scenarios through 2035. Their study reveals how production, consumption, and exports jointly shape the sector’s carbon footprint and highlights practical strategies—particularly renewable energy and clothing recycling—to curb emissions while supporting sustainable industrial development.

The analysis shows that demand-side forces dominate carbon emissions in China’s textile industry. Household consumption and exports together account for roughly 85% of total emissions growth, far outweighing the contribution from direct energy use in factories. Urban households, in particular, generate more than four times the carbon emissions of rural households due to higher clothing consumption, underscoring the climate impact of lifestyle changes.

By constructing detailed carbon flow diagrams, the study identifies wet processing, electricity use, and long, fragmented supply chains as major emission hotspots. While electrification has reduced emissions from fossil fuels, carbon embodied in upstream sectors—such as chemicals, transportation, and logistics—continues to rise.

To explore mitigation pathways, the researchers modeled five future scenarios. Energy-saving technologies alone delivered limited reductions, while large-scale renewable energy adoption significantly lowered emissions by reducing carbon intensity across the entire supply chain. Clothing recycling emerged as another powerful lever, as extending garment lifespans directly reduces the need for new production. Most notably, a combined strategy integrating renewable energy and recycling could reduce total emissions by nearly 10% compared with a business-as-usual trajectory, effectively flattening long-term emission growth.

“This study shows that decarbonizing the textile industry is not just a technological challenge, but also a consumption challenge,” said the study’s corresponding author. “Focusing only on factories misses the bigger picture. Our results demonstrate that household demand, urban lifestyles, and export-oriented production play decisive roles in driving emissions. By aligning clean energy transitions with circular economy strategies—especially clothing recycling—we can achieve meaningful emission reductions without sacrificing economic vitality. These insights provide a scientific foundation for designing more effective and balanced climate policies.”

The findings have important implications for policymakers, industry leaders, and consumers. For governments, the study highlights the need to integrate demand-side measures—such as promoting clothing reuse and recycling—into climate strategies for the textile sector. For industry, it underscores the value of transitioning to renewable energy while redesigning supply chains to be shorter and more efficient. For consumers, the research quantifies how everyday clothing choices contribute to carbon emissions, reinforcing the climate benefits of longer garment lifespans. Together, these pathways suggest that a shift toward greener production and more responsible consumption can transform textiles from a climate liability into a key contributor to a low-carbon future.

###

References

DOI

10.1007/s11783-026-2109-9

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-026-2109-9

Funding information

The study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 72304136, 72234003, and 72488101).

About Engineering Environment

Engineering Environment is the leading edge forum for peer-reviewed original submissions in English on all main branches of environmental disciplines. FESE welcomes original research papers, review articles, short communications, and views & comments. All the papers will be published within 6 months after they are submitted. The Editors-in-Chief are Academician Jiuhui Qu from Tsinghua University, and Prof. John C. Crittenden from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. The journal has been indexed by almost all the authoritative databases such as SCI, EI, INSPEC, SCOPUS, CSCD, etc.

Robert Nelson and Christopher Reddy recognized for pioneering use of GCxGC to track and understand marine pollution

Newswise — Woods Hole, Mass. (February 20, 2026) — Two chemical oceanographers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are being awarded the 2026 Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award by the International Symposium on Comprehensive Multidimensional Chromatography.

Robert Nelson and Christopher Reddy, both in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, are being recognized for more than 15 years of continuous, high-impact contributions in the field of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography, commonly known as GCxGC

GCxGC is an advanced analytical technique that separates and identifies highly complex mixtures of chemicals with exceptional detail.

With more than 60 years of combined experience, Nelson and Reddy have pioneered the use of this method to analyze pollutants in the ocean, revolutionizing the field of oil-spill forensics. Their work has advanced scientific understanding and informed response strategies for some of the most significant oil spills in recent history, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, as well as spills in San Francisco, Massachusetts, Florida, Texas, and California, and internationally in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Korea, and Japan.

“As an oceanographer, I am particularly proud that this award is selected by, and presented to, analytical chemists—a field dedicated to advancing how chemicals are measured,” Reddy said. “It is a tremendous honor to have our work recognized by this community.”

“What is especially meaningful to me is that Chris and I worked so closely together—often on site collecting samples on boats and beaches, analyzing them, and writing about the results,” Nelson added. “This award reflects not just our technical work, but a long-term partnership forged in the field and in the lab.”

The Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award for GCxGC Research is one of the highest honors bestowed by the GCxGC community, recognizing sustained innovation and impact in analytical chemistry and separation science. Nelson and Reddy will receive the award at the 44th International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography & 21st GCxGC Symposium in Riva del Garda, Italy, this spring.

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility.

Newswise — Green hydrogen production technology, which utilizes renewable energy to produce eco-friendly hydrogen without carbon emissions, is gaining attention as a core technology for addressing global warming. Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, a process that separates hydrogen and oxygen by applying electrical energy to water, requiring low-cost, high-efficiency, high-performance catalysts.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Oh Sang-rok) announced that a research team led by Dr. Na Jongbeom and Dr. Kim Jong Min from the Center for Extreme Materials Research has developed next-generation water electrolysis catalyst technology. This technology integrates a single-atom ‘All-in-one’ catalyst precisely controlled down to the atomic level with binder-free electrode technology. A key feature of this technology is its ability to stably perform both hydrogen evolution and oxygen evolution reactions simultaneously on a single electrode.

Existing electrolysis systems had limitations requiring different catalysts and electrode structures for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), necessitating the use of large quantities of expensive precious metals. Additionally, the binder used to fix the catalyst to the electrode posed problems, including reduced electrical conductivity and catalyst detachment during long-term operation.

KIST researchers utilized atomic-level precision control technology to uniformly disperse iridium (Ir) atoms across the surface of a manganese (Mn)-nickel (Ni)-based layered double hydroxide (LDH) support incorporating phytic acid. This strategy replaced the conventional use of bulk iridium precious metal. By maximizing the number of active sites for water-splitting reactions with minimal iridium, this approach is analogous to evenly spreading fine grains of sand over a large surface rather than relying on a single large rock.

In particular, the iridium single atom acts as a direct active site for the hydrogen evolution reaction through its strong interaction with the support, while simultaneously enhancing the catalytic performance of the nickel-based active site where the oxygen evolution reaction occurs. Thus, a single-atom catalyst has realized bifunctional catalytic characteristics, exhibiting suitable reactivity for both reactions. Furthermore, the research team applied a method of directly growing the catalyst on the electrode surface, achieving an electrode structure that does not require a separate binder. This significantly improved electrical conductivity and ensured excellent durability even during long-term operation.

This technology significantly reduces precious metal usage to within 1.5% compared to existing precious metal catalysts while achieving outstanding performance in both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. In addition, it demonstrates high stability with minimal performance degradation even after continuous operation for over 300 hours in an anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis system. This research outcome demonstrates the technical feasibility of simultaneously enhancing the economic viability and durability of electrolysis systems by minimizing precious metal usage and simplifying electrode structures. It is expected to significantly contribute to the commercialization of green hydrogen production and the reduction of hydrogen production costs in the future.

Dr. Na Jongbeom of KIST stated, “This work is highly significant as it resolves the two essential reactions for hydrogen production using a single catalyst while reducing precious metal consumption.” He added, “This technology will accelerate the commercialization of water electrolysis devices and provide substantial support for expanding hydrogen energy.”

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KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://kist.re.kr//eng/index.do

This research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Bae Kyung-hoon) through KIST’s Institutional Program and Excellent New Researcher Program (RS-2024-00350423), the DACU Core Technology Development Project (RS-2023-00259920), and the Korea-US-Japan International Joint Research Project (Global-24-003). The research results were published in the latest issue of the international journal Advanced Energy Materials (IF: 26.0, JCR (%): 2.5%).

Newswise — Woods Hole, Mass. (February 4, 2026) – Alan Seltzer, an affiliated scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), assistant professor at University College Dublin, and former WHOI postdoctoral scholar, has been named the 2026 recipient of the F.G. Houtermans Award by the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG). The award is among the highest international honors recognizing early-career scientists in geochemistry.

Seltzer is being recognized for pioneering the use of dissolved gas isotopes to quantify physical and biogeochemical processes across the Earth system, including exploring the sensitivity of groundwater systems to climate and the dynamics of atmosphere-ocean gas exchange. Much of the work cited by the award committee was conducted at WHOI, where Seltzer was a postdoctoral scholar from 2019 to 2021 and later a member of the scientific staff in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department, where he established a gas isotope tracer laboratory and developed several new analytical techniques.

His research helped open new pathways for using noble gas and nitrogen isotopes to investigate groundwater, seawater, air, and volcanic gases. Seltzer also helped extend high-precision noble gas isotope techniques to volcanic systems in collaboration with WHOI associate scientist Peter Barry to better understand the origins and transport pathways of volatiles from Earth’s deep interior. He also expanded oceanic applications of noble gas tracers for air-sea interaction and glacial meltwater circulation with WHOI scientists Bill Jenkins and Roo Nicholson, and more recently advanced high-precision tools for quantifying nitrogen cycling in aquatic environments in collaboration with MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Katelyn McPaul and WHOI associate scientist Scott Wankel.

“It is an honor to be recognized with the F.G. Houtermans Award,” Seltzer said. “WHOI has a special culture in which collaboration and high-risk science are celebrated, and without the encouragement and freedom at WHOI to take risks, push analytical limits, and fail a lot along the way, much of my work would not have been possible. I’m deeply grateful for all the support I’ve received from the WHOI community over my career so far.”

Seltzer’s selection continues a notable streak for WHOI’s Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department. Former WHOI postdoctoral scholar David Bekaert received the Houtermans Award in 2025, marking back-to-back years in which the honor has gone to WHOI-trained scientists—a rare distinction that highlights the strength and impact of the Institution’s postdoctoral program.

The 2026 F.G. Houtermans Award will be formally presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in July.

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility.