Publications

Hospital waste management (HWM) is critical to advancing environmental sustainability, particularly as Germany and the European Union (EU) pursue carbon neutrality by 2050. This review examines the potential of Industry 5.0 technologies to transform waste management through intelligent, human-centric systems. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, including a comprehensive literature review, site visits to five German hospitals and interviews with 20 key stakeholders such as hospital staff, policymakers and waste service providers. Germany generates an estimated 210,000 tonnes of hospital waste annually, with 25–30% classified as hazardous. However, only 17% is currently recycled or recovered. The integration of Industry 5.0 tools – Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven sorting, robotics and Internet of Things-enabled tracking – combined with staff training and participatory design, can improve segregation accuracy by 40%, reduce landfill reliance by 35% and cut waste-related carbon emissions by 22% within 10 years. Pilot technologies such as plasma gasification and autoclaving have further reduced CO 2 emissions by 28% compared to traditional incineration. Beyond technical innovation, the study emphasizes the importance of worker involvement, ethical AI and feedback systems in fostering responsible waste practices. It also identifies policy enablers like the EU Green Deal and Germany’s Hospital Future Act, which support the digital and sustainable transformation of healthcare. The findings highlight the need for a collaborative ecosystem connecting healthcare professionals, technologists and regulators. Such synergy is essential to achieving a circular, low-carbon and socially inclusive HWM system aligned with Industry 5.0 values and climate goals.

The increasing demand for clean water urges many attempts to treat wastewater. The excessive presence of organic waste and many pollutants threatens human health, potentially resulting in various forms of discomfort and negative consequences. Many materials used have been modified vividly to solve the problem mentioned. Core-shell-based material as a catalyst and adsorbent is one of the modifications that increase nowadays, and the material used is believed to be the foremost point in the characteristic and application of the material. On the other hand, when used in the form of powder or solid, there are various challenges associated with its application, including the complications of separation, susceptibility to saturation, and the issue of leaching. Hence, one of the solutions is to develop core–shell-based materials in the form of membranes or incorporate them into a membrane matrix. Due to its low cost and practicality, membrane technology emerges as an efficient method. Various membrane modifications and configurations, such as core–shell-based membrane matrix, as membrane filler, or as coating layer, have been carried out to achieve excellent filtration performance. Nanofiber membrane which adopts a core–shell configuration in its matrix has shown better performance. Furthermore, fouling is a prevalent problem for membranes that can be addressed by using fillers made from core-shell structured materials. The enhanced filler dispersion and matrix stability lead to the high permeation flux and selectivity. Nevertheless, the particular synthesis and preparation conditions of the material remain a limitation, particularly when it comes to scaling up its application. This review focuses on core–shell-based material as a catalyst and adsorbent, encompassing variations in their core materials, synthesis methods, and their application in membranes which involves the core–shell configuration of membranes, the synthesis process, and the performance of the membrane with the presence of the structured material as a matrix, filler, and others. In addition, comprehensive applications of the core–shell-based membrane as a photocatalytic and adsorptive membrane in wastewater treatments are discussed. Furthermore, the review outlines a forward-looking perspective on the potential evolution of core-shell-based membranes, underscoring their continued significance in advancing wastewater treatment methodologies.

The study examines the effect of using low nickel (Ni) with high ceria (CeO2) anode content towards the oxidation of H2 and CH4 fuel by evaluating the activation energy of the ohmic process and charge transfer process. Using a micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cell (MT-SOFC), the anodes are made up of 50% YSZ with varying NiO:CeO2 percentages from 0% NiO, 50% CeO2 to 50% NiO, 0% CeO2. The performance is measured based on maximum power density (MPD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and activation energy, Ea of the ohmic (Rohm) and charge transfer (Rct) processes. We found that by lowering the Ni content to lower than 50% NiO, anode conductivity will drop by 7-fold. An anode containing 37.5% NiO, 12.5% CeO2 yield MPD of 41.1 and 2.9 mW cm−2 when tested on H2 and CH4 fuels thus have the lowest Ni content without an abrupt negative effect on the MPD and EIS. The significant effect of conductivity drops on MPD and EIS are observed to occur at 25% NiO, 25% CeO2 and lower NiO content. However, anode content of 25% NiO, 25% CeO2 has the lowest Ea for Rct (29.74 kJ mol−1) for operation in CH4, making it the best anode composition to oxidize CH4. As a conclusion, an anode containing 25% NiO:25% CeO2:50% YSZ and 37.5% NiO:12.5% CeO2:50% YSZ shows promising results in becoming the low Ni anode for coking-tolerant SOFC.

No abstract is provided for this article.

No abstract is provided for this article.

A new strategy to recycle dialysate within a system is needed to foster the progress of developing wearable artificial kidney as an alternative to conventional hemodialysis practices. This study presents an attractive approach to collectively remove uremic toxins by combining membrane filtration and adsorption process. In this work, dual layer hollow fiber (DLHF) membranes consisting of polysulfone (PSf) inner layer well attached to PSf/amino-silanized poly(methyl methacrylate (N-PMMA) outer layer were prepared via co-extrusion spinning process based on non-solvent induced phase separation. The PSf/N-PMMA DLHF membranes were characterized and evaluated in terms of urea adsorption capacity and filtration performance. It was revealed that the urea adsorption onto N-PMMA is a non-spontaneous physical process that follows Freundlich isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Results showed that the membrane exhibited urea adsorption capacity of up to 27.6 mg/g depending on N-PMMA content. Under dynamic filtration condition, the membranes demonstrated significant urea removal (39.2%) and showed desired sieving characteristics for other solutes. The design of DLHF membrane with adsorptive property is an exciting prospect that would become a key solution for dialysate regeneration.

One of the main problems in direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) application is methanol crossover. In order to solve the problem, an exfoliated void-free electrospun Sulfonated Poly(Ether Ether Ketone) (SPEEK)/cloisite nanocomposite membrane was developed. The membrane was prepared by immersing electrospun SPEEK/cloisite fiber mats onto incomplete solidified SPEEK polymer matrix. A well dispersed and reduction size of cloisite particles that ranges from 0.29⁻0.39 µm was observed by using Scanning Electron Microscopy Analysis (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The effect of the morphology of the composite membrane in terms of degree of dispersion state of the Cloisite on the membrane performance was discussed. SP/e-spunCL15 with fully exfoliated structure exhibited the highest performance as compared to other tested membranes and Nafion® 115 with current density of 1042.2 mAcm-2 and power density of 1.18 mWcm-2. Improved morphological, dimensional change properties, and performance assigned to well-dispersed cloisite15A induced by the electrospinning technique make the membranes more efficient for direct methanol fuel cell applications.

No abstract is provided for this article.

A concurrent and facile sol-gel assisted low temperature calcination approach to homogeneous growth of TiO2 mixed phase nanoparticles over g-C3N4 for designing visible-light-driven photocatalyst is demonstrated in this study. The structural and morphological studies revealed a well-interconnected g-C3N4/TiO2 mixed phase heterojunction photocatalyst was achieved through a sol-gel process and calcination at 400°C. The well-interconnected g-C3N4/TiO2 mixed phase heterojunction photocatalyst has strong visible light absorption capability due to the presence of an in-situ nitrogen and carbon dopants. The noticeably increased in the visible-light-photocatalytic activity performance is ascertained mainly due to the improvement of electron-hole separation and charge carrier migration.

Economic and simple co-precipitation technique was used to synthesize cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CuxCo(1-x)Fe2O4) where x = 0.0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 1.0. We systematically studied the crystal structure and antibacterial properties of samples as a function of Cu-substituted content. Increasing Cu concentration causes decrease in the nanoparticle size from ~30 to ~20 nm. Specific saturation magnetization (Ms), remanent magnetization (Mr) and coercivity (Hc) of the spinel ferrites are diminished by the substitutions of Cu+2 ions. FTIR spectra exhibit two prominent fundamental absorption bands at ~595 cm-1 and 419 cm-1. These bands correspond to intrinsic stretching vibrations of metal at tetrahedral and octahedral site respectively. The Raman scattering results reveal that increase in the Cu content enhances the local disorder at both tetrahedral and octahedral sub lattices. Moreover, we found that substitution of cobalt with copper leads to high reactive oxygen species (ROS) which in turn enhance the antibacterial ability, as exhibited by optical density and inhibition zone diameter (IZD). The results indicate that the substitution of Co with Cu in Co ferrite nanoparticles strongly influences the microstructure, crystal structure and particle diameter.