Environmental sustainability and ecological balance dilemma: accounting for the role of institutional quality.

Global warming is a global menace mainly driven by human anthropogenic activities. There is a need for environmental sustainability amidst increased economic growth. To this end, this study draws motivation from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) with special focus on climate change mitigation and ecological balance. Thus, the present study analyses the dynamic relationship between economic growth, conventional energy consumption, access to technological innovation, economic globalisation, and the pertinent role of institutional quality for the case of the Russian Federation. This study employed novel combined Bayer and Hack cointegration test in conjunction with Pesaran's ARDL bounds testing for robustness. Both tests validate a long-run equilibrium relationship between the outlined variables. Furthermore, empirical results show that increase in economic activities and consumption of energy that stem from a fossil-fuel basis both have deteriorating effect on environmental sustainability for Russia. Additionally, effect of globalisation shows mixed results, such as, in the short run, economic globalisation dampens environmental quality as increase in global integration exacerbates environmental quality, while, in the long term, globalisation improves the quality of the environment. On the contribution of institutional quality, it improves environmental sustainability over the investigated period. Interestingly, renewable is seen as a panacea for environmental sustainability in the Russian Federation given its pertinent effect to improve the environment of Russia. From a policy lens, there is need for a paradigm shift to renewables and clean technologies to mitigate the effect of climate change issues. The concluding section presents more policy strategies.

Environmental consequences of foreign direct investment influx and conventional energy consumption: evidence from dynamic ARDL simulation for Turkey.

The preponderance of emerging economies confronts significant trade-offs between economic growth and environmental sustainability considerations, and Turkey is no exception. This study draws strength from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs-7,11,12 & 13). To this end, the present study explores the role of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the case of Turkey for annual frequency data from 1970 to 2020. The present study leverages on the novel dynamic autoregressive-distributed lag (DARDL) methodology and Bayer and Hanck combined cointegration test. The combined Bayer and Hanck cointegration test alongside ARDL bounds test traces equilibrium relationship between economic growth, urbanization, FDI, energy use, and CO2 emission over the investigated period. Empirical results from the DARDL simulation analysis validates the EKC hypothesis. These results suggest that environmental quality is being compromised for economic growth at the earlier stage of economic growth (scale stage). The EKC phenomenon is affirmed as a 1% increase in economic growth increase emission level by 0.1580% and quadratic economic growth decrease emission by 0.1095% in the short and long run, respectively. Similarly, urbanization and energy used in both the short and long run also worsen environmental quality while FDI influx in the long run improves environmental quality in Turkey. These outcomes have far-reaching environment-urbanization growth implications. From a policy lens, the current study subscribed to the environmental stick policies and investment on strategies on a paradigm shift from fossil-fuel energy consumption base to renewables. Further insights are highlighted in the concluding section.

Efficient Fractionation of Graphene Oxide Based on Reversible Adsorption of Polymer and Size-Dependent Sodium Ion Storage.

Graphene oxide (GO) is not only a unique class of two-dimensional (2D) materials but also an important precursor for scalable preparation of graphene. The efficient size fractionation of GO is of great importance to the fundamental and applied studies of chemically modified graphene, but remains a great challenge. Herein, we report an efficient and scalable fractionation method of GO employing reversible adsorption/desorption of temperature-responsive poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) on GO to amplify its mass difference and significantly improve the fractionation efficiency. Furthermore, size-dependent sodium ion storage of the resulting fractionated reduced GO (RGO) is revealed for the first time with high sodium storage performance achieved for the smallest RGO because of its largest d-spacing and most defect sites. This work provides valuable insights into the size fractionation and size-dependent electrochemical performance of graphene, which can be potentially extended to other 2D materials.

Double-Holey-Heterostructure Frameworks Enable Fast, Stable, and Simultaneous Ultrahigh Gravimetric, Areal, and Volumetric Lithium Storage.

Deliberate design of advantageous nanostructures holds great promise for developing high-performance electrode materials for electrochemical energy storage. However, it remains a tremendous challenge to simultaneously gain high gravimetric, areal, and volumetric capacities as well as high rate performance and cyclability to meet practical requirements mainly due to the intractable insufficient ion diffusion and limited active sites for dense electrodes with high areal mass loadings. Herein we report a double-holey-heterostructure framework, in which holey Fe2O3 nanosheets (H-Fe2O3) are tightly and conformably grown on the holey reduced graphene oxide (H-RGO). This hierarchical nanostructure allows for rapid ion and electron transport and sufficient utilization of active sites throughout a highly compact and thick electrode. Therefore, the free-standing flexible H-Fe2O3/H-RGO heterostructure anode can simultaneously deliver ultrahigh gravimetric, areal, and volumetric capacities of 1524 mAh g-1, 4.72 mAh cm-2, and 2621 mAh cm-3, respectively, at 0.2 A g-1 after 120 cycles, and extraordinary rate performance with a capacity of 487 mAh g-1 (1.51 mAh cm-2) at a high current density of 30 A g-1 (93 mA cm-2) as well as excellent cycling stability with a capacity retention of 96.3% after 1600 cycles, which has rarely been achieved before.

Unexpected Effect of Electrode Architecture on High-Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

In the past years, considerable efforts have been devoted to the deliberate synthesis of nanosulfur in various hosts with sophisticated structures to improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) and reveal the structure-property relationship. It is taken for granted that these elaborate sulfur nanostructures are well maintained in the ultimate electrode after the traditional mixing and coating method. Herein, we, for the first time, reveal the unexpected sulfur structure deterioration in nanosulfur/graphene composites during the electrode preparation using the traditional method because of the long-term neglected dissolution-recrystallization effect of sulfur in solvents. Consequently, compared with binder-free three-dimensional graphene/sulfur electrodes, the milled graphene/sulfur electrodes exhibit much worse electrochemical performance. On the basis of this, we further propose a facile and universal graphene oxide-assisted assembly method to avoid the dissolution-recrystallization of sulfur, by which binder-free three-dimensional ethylenediamine-functionalized graphene/sulfur (3DEFGS) electrodes have been successfully prepared. The 3DEFGS electrodes with a high areal sulfur loading of ∼6 mg cm-2 exhibit an ultrahigh initial capacity of 1394 mA h g-1 at 0.1 C, an excellent rate performance with a capacity of 796 mA h g-1 at 4 C, and superior long-term cycling stability (885 mA h g-1 after 500 cycles at 1 C), which are among the best performances achieved by all reported LSB cathodes with high areal sulfur loadings.

Microwave-assisted CVD-like synthesis of dispersed monolayer/few-layer N-doped graphene encapsulated metal nanocrystals for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution.

Herein a novel and general microwave-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-like synthetic strategy was developed to realize the ultrafast synthesis of a series of well-dispersed monolayer/few-layer N-doped graphene shell encapsulated metal nanocrystals (M@NC) by using a metal-organic framework (MOF) on graphene as precursors for the first time. Unlike traditional programmed heat treatment, this microwave-assisted method decomposed the MOF into separated metal and carbon- and nitrogen-containing gases rather than aggregated metal and carbon composites during the initial thermal transformation stages. This change ensured the effective control of the subsequent formation process of carbon on the surface of metal and led to the formation of well-dispersed M@NC with monolayer/few-layer NC. Moreover, the graphene substrate promoted the full exposure of all active monolayer/few-layer NC, and thus the obtained FeNi@NC/graphene displays the best electrocatalytic properties for the oxygen evolution reaction of all of the previously reported M@NC based catalysts, including the lowest overpotential (261 mV) at 10 mA cm-2 in alkaline electrolyte (1 M KOH), the smallest Tafel slope (40 mV dec-1) and excellent durability for at least 120 h.