Copper Single-Atom Catalysts-A Rising Star for Energy Conversion and Environmental Purification: Synthesis, Modification, and Advanced Applications.

Future renewable energy supply and green, sustainable environmental development rely on various types of catalytic reactions. Copper single-atom catalysts (Cu SACs) are attractive due to their distinctive electronic structure (3d orbitals are not filled with valence electrons), high atomic utilization, and excellent catalytic performance and selectivity. Despite numerous optimization studies are conducted on Cu SACs in terms of energy conversion and environmental purification, the coupling among Cu atoms-support interactions, active sites, and catalytic performance remains unclear, and a systematic review of Cu SACs is lacking. To this end, this work summarizes the recent advances of Cu SACs. The synthesis strategies of Cu SACs, metal-support interactions between Cu single atoms and different supports, modification methods including modification for carriers, coordination environment regulating, site distance effect utilizing, and dual metal active center catalysts constructing, as well as their applications in energy conversion and environmental purification are emphatically introduced. Finally, the opportunities and challenges for the future Cu SACs development are discussed. This review aims to provide insight into Cu SACs and a reference for their optimal design and wide application.

Regional convergence analysis of sustainable innovation efficiency in European Union countries.

Sustainable innovation strategies have been taken very seriously by the European Union (EU), which aims to reduce energy consumption and environmental pollutants emissions. For the sake of testing the sustainable performance of EU countries empirically, this research evaluates the sustainable innovation efficiency (SIE) of EU countries through a DEA-SBM model and analyzes the convergence trends of the EU regions by convergence analysis. The results show that the EU has attached great importance to sustainable innovation efficiency, indicating that the EU makes a concerted effort in technological innovation, energy saving, and environmental protection. Significant differences exist in SIE among EU regions, even though the southern region has the highest efficiency. In addition, there are distinct convergence trends in regional sustainable innovation efficiency. Control variables have significant impacts on the convergence of SIE in the EU regions. Furthermore, policymakers are also provided with useful decision support for regional sustainable innovation, energy conservation, and emission reduction policies.

Measuring the bias of technical change of industrial energy and environment productivity in China: a global DEA-Malmquist productivity approach.

Thanks to the booming industry, China has made a huge economic achievement during the past several decades. However, it is suffering severe environmental and sustainable problems now. To find a sustainable development path, it is necessary to assess Chinese industrial energy and environment productivity and explore the contributing reasons. It is known that the technical change is the one power that drives the growth of the industrial productivity. Nevertheless, the technical change bias of Chinese industrial energy and environment productivity has rarely been analyzed, such that the secrets of Chinese industrial energy and environment productivity cannot be further uncovered. Thus, in this paper, we first propose a global DEA-Malmquist productivity index to evaluate the industrial energy and environment productivity of China and then figure out the Chinese industrial technical change biases by relaxing the Hicks' neutral assumption and decomposing the industrial technical change. We find out that both the global DEA-Malmquist productivity and the technical change are increased. Furthermore, the technical change drives the improvement of the global Malmquist productivity, but the technical progress is mainly driven by labor, energy consumption and CO2 emission biases. A multinomial logistic model is employed to find out the reasons for these biases. It finds that (1) the economic foundation has a significant positive impact on labor bias, while the infrastructures have negative impacts on labor bias. (2) CO2 emission bias is influence by energy prices positively. (3) The energy prices and the energy consumption structure have a negative influence on labor and energy bias, but the cost of curbing air pollutants and the size of the firm influence labor and energy bias positively. (4) The infrastructures and energy prices affect energy and CO2 emission bias positively, and the economic foundation and the size of the firm have negative impacts on energy and CO2 emission bias.

Metal Halide Perovskite@Metal-Organic Framework Hybrids: Synthesis, Design, Properties, and Applications.

Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) have excellent optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications because of their cost-effectiveness, tunable emission, high photoluminescence quantum yields, and excellent charge carrier properties. However, the potential applications of the entire MHP family are facing a major challenge arising from its weak resistance to moisture, polar solvents, temperature, and light exposure. A viable strategy to enhance the stability of MHPs could lie in their incorporation into a porous template. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have outstanding properties, with a unique network of ordered/functional pores, which render them promising for functioning as such a template, accommodating a wide range of MHPs to the nanosized region, alongside minimizing particle aggregation and enhancing the stability of the entrapped species. This review highlights recent advances in design strategies, synthesis, characterization, and properties of various hybrids of MOFs with MHPs. Particular attention is paid to a critical review of the emergence of MHP@MOF for comprehensive studies of next-generation materials for various technological applications including sensors, photocatalysis, encryption/decryption, light-emitting diodes, and solar cells. Finally, by summarizing the state-of-the-art, some promising future applications of reported hybrids are proposed. Considering the inherent correlation and synergic functionalities of MHPs and MOFs, further advancement; new functional materials; and applications can be achieved through designing MHP@MOF hybrids.

An interprovincial evaluation of industrial energy and environment efficiency: what drives China to make progress in sustainability?

China has made huge economic achievements based on industry. Heterogeneity, resulting from the industrial structure, energy endowment, and infrastructure among regions, has always been neglected on industrial performance evaluation. This paper focuses on provincial industrial heterogeneity to make a study. Firstly, meta-frontier slack-based measure is employed to rate industrial energy and environment efficiency of China. Besides, spatial evolution characteristics of efficiencies are described by global Moran's I and local Moran's I index. Taking the spatial correlation effect of efficiency into consideration, factors driving Chinese industrial energy and environment efficiency are analyzed and distinguished by quantitative regression and spatial Durbin model. It finds that (1) technical inefficiency and managerial inefficiency mainly attribute to the inefficiency of industrial energy and environment. (2) Chinese industrial energy and environment efficiency presents a stable spatial agglomeration as "high aggregation, low aggregation." It is necessary and indispensable for provinces and regions to cooperate to enhance efficiency. (3) Each province has a distinct driving mechanism of efficiency. The improvement policy of efficiency should be diversified for different provinces.