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[technoclub]

Emerging technologies to avoid and collect marine plastic pollution are being explored as potential solutions to the problem of plastic pollution.

As plastic garbage continues to amass at alarming rates in the ocean, the demand for efficient and long-term remediation solutions has never been greater. One solution is to develop and deploy systems that either 1) prevent plastics from entering waterways or 2) collect plastic waste in the ocean and rivers. However, there have been few reports on these technologies to date, and knowledge on diverse technological breakthroughs is scattered. As a result, politicians, innovators, and academics are left without a central, comprehensive, and trustworthy source of information on the state of current technology to address this global issue. The purpose of this study was to fill that vacuum by compiling a comprehensive list of devices that are presently in use or being developed to prevent plastic pollution leakage or to collect existing plastic pollution. 

Ingested microplastics and macroplastics' chemical effects are also an increasing concern (Brennecke et al., 2016, Karbalaei et al., 2018, Karbalaei et al., 2019, Karbalaei et al., 2020, Luo et al., 2020, Teuten et al., 2009, Turner, 2018). Plastic additives from the manufacturing process (e.g., heavy metals, plasticizers) or compounds that have adsorbed to plastic from the surrounding environment (e.g., heavy metals) may serve as efficient delivery systems for harmful contaminants (Gallo et al., 2018, Turner, 2016, Turner, 2018). Some microplastics, for example, have been discovered to include chemicals that are known to be reproductive poisons, carcinogens, or mutagens (Wright & Kelly, 2017). These compounds may bioaccumulate up the food chain after being consumed at numerous trophic levels, with unknown consequences for food webs (Carbery et al., 2018, Farrell and Nelson, 2013, Lusher et al., 2018).

These cutting-edge methods for reducing global plastic pollution concentrate on several stages of the plastic life cycle, such as manufacture, consumption, and waste management, which can include landfilling, recycling, or repurposing (e.g., waste-to-energy) (Nielsen et al., 2020, Prata et al., 2019). Approximately 80% of marine plastic pollution comes from land-based sources (Li et al., 2016b, Ritchie and Roser, 2018), and it is common for plastic to leak out of waste management channels into the environment as mismanaged waste throughout the production, consumption, and waste management stages of the plastic life cycle (Fig. 1) (Li et al., 2016b, Ritchie and Roser, 2018). (Nielsen et al., 2020, Prata et al., 2019). For example, plastic can be lost to the surrounding environment and transported to the oceans via waterways, winds, and tides due to littering and improper waste management in open or uncontrolled landfills (Law, 2017, Ritchie and Roser, 2018). Microplastics can enter the environment through wastewater, storms, and catastrophic events, which can carry materials of all kinds, including plastics, into the oceans (Law, 2017). Technologies addressing these issues are geared toward either 1) directly preventing plastic leakage into waterways or 2) collecting existing plastic pollution. During the recycling phase, innovative recycling solutions, such as plastic-to-fuel and bioremediation, are being explored (Mohanraj et al., 2017, Sheth et al., 2019, Tournier et al., 2020, Yoshida et al., 2016). These technologies are promising complements that can be used in conjunction with policy efforts to reduce marine plastic pollution (Cordier and Uehara, 2019, Gold et al., 2013, Worm et al., 2017). Member states should "cooperate regionally and internationally on clean-up actions of such hotspots where appropriate, and develop environmentally sound systems and methods for such removal and sound disposal of marine litter," according to the UNEA Resolution 2/11 (Resolution 2/11 Marine plastic litter and microplastics, xxxx, ten Brink et al., 2018).

[technoclub]

Recent breakthroughs in oil and gas produced water treatment technologies for the sustainable energy industry-mechanistic features and process chemistry perspectives

During oil and gas exploration and production, produced water (PW) is the greatest wastewater stream (brine) that is brought up from the hydrocarbon bearing formation strata. It is a mixture of formation water, seawater, or fresh water that has been trapped beneath hydrocarbons in porous reservoir material for millions of years. injection water; modest volumes of condensed water from gas production; and treatment chemical residues added to enable successful hydro-fracture operations. Water injection is not employed in gas fields, implying that the PW in a gas field is a combination of formation and condensed water. As a result, the volume of PW produced by a gas field has been reported to be lower than that produced by an oil field. Furthermore, the acidity of PW from a gas field has been observed to be higher than that of PW from an oilfield, which could be attributed to the presence of dissolved CO2 and H2S acidic gasses in the former. Exploration and production (E & P) activities in oil and gas fields require a variety of solvents and chemicals, with roughly one-third of these chemicals believed to be released in PW. The water cut (the ratio of water produced to total fluid produced) has been observed to grow with the age of the well, with production capacity in a fully depleted field estimated to drop to as low as 98 percent water cut.

Oil and gas PW treatment must meet water quality requirements imposed by regulatory organizations, either for discharge/reuse or to ensure the energy sector's long-term viability. The disposal of unprocessed oil and gas PW, which contains a variety of toxic elements, may jeopardize the environment's long-term viability. The chemical and physical features of PW must be understood in order to determine an acceptable method for lowering the content of these hazardous compounds in PW to a permissible level prior to disposal or fit-for-purpose reuse.

The anticipated global production volume of produced formation water was roughly 250 million barrels per day, compared to around 80 million barrels of oil produced per day, resulting in an 80 percent water cut. The latest analysis, which updates and extends on the 2007 report to provide a more recent estimate for the global volume of PW generated from all onshore and offshore oil and gas production, showed a water cut of about 85%. Aside from the site-specific nature of the PW volume, additional factors such as the well's age, geographical location, reservoir history, and production technology also have a role. As a production well ages, the volume of PW produced each year increases, with production capacity in a nearly depleted oil field dropping to as low as 2% oil to PW.

Oil and gas composition Dissolved oil, dissolved hydrocarbons, dissolved gases (especially hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide), organic acids, phenols, and metals are all part of PW. In addition, PW contains residues of production chemicals (additives) that are rigorously regulated in most countries and whose compositions do not contribute to an increased pollution load in PW. These persistent organic compounds, such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene (BTEX), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phenols, organic acids, waxes, surfactants, and biocides, are deposited as primary pollutants in PW. Figure 1 depicts the chemical structure of some of these molecules.

[technoclub]

A review of the use of antisense technology in agricultural enhancement

There are other types of antisense technology utilized for crop improvement, including lncRNA; however, we did not include their application in this review due to the diverse processes they used for improvement. The applications of asRNA and RNAi are the topic of this review. High yielding, disease-resistant, insect-resistant, high nutritional value, produce male sterility and fertility, and stress-tolerant crops are all benefits of RNA silencing technology (Williams et al., 2004). The metabolite enzymes are regulated and employed for the accumulation of good plant metabolites in RNA silencing, which improves the end result by removing bad proteins and allergic metabolites (Meena et al., 2017). Antisense technologies are useful for crop development because they restrict or eliminate the expression of genes involved in the manufacture of hazardous chemicals in food (J-Z. Xu et al., 2018). We show and explore the use of these strategies in food and cash crop production in this paper. 

Antisense technology is well known for its ability to increase the nutritional content of crops (e.g., amino acids, fatty acids, fiber), remove/decrease unwanted harmful substances, create male sterility for crop breeding, improve shelf life, and adjust a variety of other features (Auer & Frederick, 2009).

Antisense RNA technology has been shown to improve protein quality. Zeins are proteins that are expressed only during seed development and serve as a source of free amino acids. By knocking off the expression of 22-kD maize zein storage proteins, RNA silencing has been successfully used to develop high lysine maize variants in maize (Song et al., 2001). Corn proteins are mostly zein, or storage proteins, which are devoid of critical amino acids like lysine and tryptophan. By using RNA silencing technology to reduce zein levels, maize with high lysine and tryptophan content can be produced (Frizzi & Huang, 2010).

Glutenin is a key protein found in rice, wheat, and maize, among other foods. Glutenin is primarily responsible for the dough's functional qualities, which boost the viscoelasticity of these crops' dough (Zhaojun Wang et al., 2017). Gliadins are responsible for the elasticity and extensibility of gluten and dough, while polymeric glutenins are responsible for the viscosity. Glutenin levels could be decreased by employing RNA silencing technology to create a variety of crops known as LGC (low glutenin content). The ability to systematically silence specific groups of gluten proteins using RNAi has been established by silencing the expression of specific [gamma]-gliadins (Gil-Humanes et al., 2008).

The concentration of saturated fatty acids in Camelina sativa, a re-emerging oil crop, must be reduced in order to suit various application requirements. Ozseyhan et al. (2018) found that down-regulating genes encoding fatty acyl-ACP thioesterases allowed for a reduction in saturated fatty acids (FATB). Seeds with a particular expression of amiFATB increased oleic acid content while lowering palmitic acid (16:0) and stearic acid (18:0) content by 54% and 38%, respectively, when compared to the wild type. This discovery shows that a synthesized microRNA targeting gene-specific regions can efficiently shut down FATB genes in camelina (Ozseyhan et al., 2018).