Life Cycle Assessment of a novel digestate treatment unit for anaerobic digestate plant: a UK case

Management of digestate co-product produced from anaerobic digestion (AD) has become a challenge due to impacts on the environment. Valorising AD into high-value products is not only considered as a solution to this issue but can also make AD more cost-effective. Project NOMAD (Novel Organic recovery using Mobile ADvanced technology) funded by H2020 is currently developing an innovative solution for valorising digestate. A designed mobile unit combines several digestate treatment technologies, i.e., solid-liquid separation, ultraviolet light and ozone oxidation, and electrodialysis. The valuable nutrients are concentrated from the liquid fraction, and the solid fraction is collected as compost. This study adopts Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to assess environmental impacts of the NOMAD unit incorporated into a UK AD plant, focusing on business-as-usual (BAU) case, NOMAD scenario, and upscaled NOMAD scenario. The BAU case is current management of digestate, where digestate is transported, stored, and applied to farmlands. The NOMAD scenario introduces one unit, capable of addressing digestate 5 ton/day, while the upscaled NOMAD scenario can process all digestate produced from the AD plant. 12 impact categories are selected using ReCiPe 2016. The results show that the upscaled NOMAD scenario can reduce 11%-69% of targeted impacts compared to BAU scenario, with 1%-24% reduction for NOMAD scenario. The NOMAD unit process, either upscaled or one-unit, contributes less than 6% of overall impacts, while AD activities and field application are the main impact contributors. The outcome of these scenarios validates the NOMAD unit for valorisation of digestate from environmental impact perspective

Clinicians’ perspectives and experiences of providing cervical ripening at home or in-hospital in the United Kingdom

Acknowledgements We are grateful to those who gave their time for interviews and focus groups despite the severe workload pressures and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. CHOICE is funded by the National Institute of Healthcare Research Health Technology and Assessment (NIHR HTA) NIHR 127569. SJS is funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Career Development Fellowship (209560/Z/17/Z). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Institute of Healthcare Research or the Department of Health and Social Care.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Innovation for green industrialisation: an empirical assessment of innovation in Ethiopia’s cement, leather and textile sectors

Ethiopia has recently committed to economic transformation and industrialisation through a low-carbon development trajectory. Existing literature highlights innovation as a critical driver of industrialisation, and the need for ‘green’ innovations to improve resource productivity and reduce pollution. However, empirical studies investigating the nexus between green innovation systems and industrialisation in developing countries are limited. Based on nine semi-structured interviews and a survey of 117 firms, this paper assesses sectoral systems of innovation in Ethiopia’s cement, leather and textile sectors, with a view to understanding their functioning toward supporting green industrialisation. Results revealed low rates of product and process innovations among firms in Ethiopia. The main inhibitors of innovation are high costs of technology, inadequate finance and limited information. Improving competitiveness is the main driver of firms’ innovation, while reducing environmental impacts and meeting environmental regulations were among the least important motivators. Moreover, interactions among firms, government and other actors encourage innovation. The study therefore suggests enhancing coordination among key actors, providing financial incentives for firms, and enforcing environmental regulations

Structural characterisation of the polysaccharides of Plantago ovata Forsk. seed husk using nuclear magnetic resonance and physico-chemical methods

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN055932 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Energy and the food system

Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil resources. Both direct energy use for crop management and indirect energy use for fertilizers, pesticides and machinery production have contributed to the major increases in food production seen since the 1960s. However, the relationship between energy inputs and yields is not linear. Low-energy inputs can lead to lower yields and perversely to higher energy demands per tonne of harvested product. At the other extreme, increasing energy inputs can lead to ever-smaller yield gains. Although fossil fuels remain the dominant source of energy for agriculture, the mix of fuels used differs owing to the different fertilization and cultivation requirements of individual crops. Nitrogen fertilizer production uses large amounts of natural gas and some coal, and can account for more than 50 per cent of total energy use in commercial agriculture. Oil accounts for between 30 and 75 per cent of energy inputs of UK agriculture, depending on the cropping system. While agriculture remains dependent on fossil sources of energy, food prices will couple to fossil energy prices and food production will remain a significant contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Technological developments, changes in crop management, and renewable energy will all play important roles in increasing the energy efficiency of agriculture and reducing its reliance of fossil resources. Keywords: energy in agriculture; fossil energy; agricultural greenhouse gas emissions; land use; agroforestry; polic

BioLPG for Clean Cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa: Present and Future Feasibility of Technologies, Feedstocks, Enabling Conditions and Financing

Energy supply for clean cooking is a priority for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, i.e., propane or butane or a mixture of both) is an economically efficient, cooking energy solution used by over 2.5 billion people worldwide and scaled up in numerous low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Investigation of the technical, policy, economic and physical requirements of producing LPG from renewable feedstocks (bioLPG) finds feasibility at scale in Africa. Biogas and syngas from the circular economic repurposing of municipal solid waste and agricultural waste can be used in two groundbreaking new chemical processes (Cool LPG or Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion (IH2)) to selectively produce bioLPG. Evidence about the nature and scale potential of bioLPG presented in this study justifies further investment in the development of bioLPG as a fuel that can make a major contribution toward enabling an SSA green economy and universal energy access. Techno-economic assessments of five potential projects from Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda illustrate what might be possible. BioLPG technology is in the early days of development, so normal technology piloting and de-risking need to be undertaken. However, fully developed bioLPG production could greatly reduce the public and private sector investment required to significantly increase SSA clean cooking capacity

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Altres ajuts: Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); Illumina; LifeArc; Medical Research Council (MRC); UKRI; Sepsis Research (the Fiona Elizabeth Agnew Trust); the Intensive Care Society, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (223164/Z/21/Z); BBSRC Institute Program Support Grant to the Roslin Institute (BBS/E/D/20002172, BBS/E/D/10002070, BBS/E/D/30002275); UKRI grants (MC_PC_20004, MC_PC_19025, MC_PC_1905, MRNO2995X/1); UK Research and Innovation (MC_PC_20029); the Wellcome PhD training fellowship for clinicians (204979/Z/16/Z); the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT) programme; the National Institute for Health Research, the Wellcome Trust; the MRC; Cancer Research UK; the DHSC; NHS England; the Smilow family; the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (CTSA award number UL1TR001878); the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; National Institute on Aging (NIA U01AG009740); the National Institute on Aging (RC2 AG036495, RC4 AG039029); the Common Fund of the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health; NCI; NHGRI; NHLBI; NIDA; NIMH; NINDS.Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care or hospitalization after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes-including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)-in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease