Ammonium carbonate (AC) represents a concentrated ammonium precursor with potential relevance for nitrogen (N) recovery from anaerobic digestate, but its direct use in soils is limited by chemical instability and rapid N loss. In this study, ammonium carbonate was used as a model ammonium source to synthesize a magnesium ammonium sulfate double salt, Mg(NH4)2(SO4)2 & centerdot;6H2O (MgSA), and its performance in soil was evaluated relative to ammonium carbonate and urea. In particular, MgSA was prepared via a solid-state green solvent-free mechanochemical method and structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis. MgSA was synthesized at high conversion for the molar MgSO4 & centerdot;7H2O : AC of 0.8 : 1.2 to 1.2 : 0.8 using epsomite salt as a precursor on a mg scale, while 20 gram batches were synthesized using anhydrous MgSO4 & centerdot;7H2O and AC mixtures. Ammonia volatilization of MgSA was assessed under controlled laboratory conditions, while agronomic performance was evaluated in growth-chamber experiments using romaine lettuce grown in three sandy loam soils with contrasting physicochemical properties. Under high relative humidity, MgSA granules exhibited a significant decrease in NH3 emission as obtained using the Richards kinetic model, as compared to the AC. In growth chamber experiments, MgSA sustained strong lettuce growth, often matching or exceeding the performance of urea and ammonium carbonate while avoiding excessive soil nitrate accumulation via sustained nitrogen delivery, allowing plant uptake to remain stable. The simultaneous supply of magnesium and sulfur enabled chlorophyll synthesis and nitrogen assimilation, demonstrating the value of integrating multiple essential nutrients into a single crystalline phase. We conclude that this work charts pathways for using waste-derived AC as a promising green chemistry agent that can be mechanochemically combined with mineral salts and contribute to global nitrogen cycling.
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), owing to their high crystallinity, thermal stability, and strong mechanical performance, serve as promising candidates for sustainable, high gas barrier packaging materials. However, their inherent moisture sensitivity and poor water resistance limit their practical applications. This study presents a strategy to overcome this limitation by constructing a network within CNC coating layers using 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA) as a cross-linker and sodium hypophosphite (SHP) as a catalyst. The resulting cross-linked network had improved water resistance, enabling the coatings to maintain structural integrity during water immersion without redispersing. Furthermore, cross-linking concurrently enhanced oxygen and water vapor barrier properties, overcoming the common trade-off between the two. For the coating formulation with 30% cross-linker, the oxygen barrier performance was improved by nearly 2 orders of magnitude compared to plain polylactic acid (PLA), while the water vapor transmission rate was also significantly lowered by 63% under dry cup conditions. In addition, a substantial portion of the enhanced barrier properties were retained after water immersion, showing great potential for its application in real-world packaging scenarios where the films may be exposed to high humidity or wet environments. Importantly, the enhanced oxygen barrier performance was demonstrated in a guacamole storage test where the cross-linked CNC coatings effectively slowed oxidative browning. This work demonstrates a viable path for developing water-resistant, high barrier, and sustainable packaging materials.
Application of biochar to soil is considered a sustainable strategy to mitigate pesticide contamination due to its high sorption capacity. This ability depends on several physicochemical properties, including particle size. Thus, this study evaluated the influence of two particle size ranges (0.063-1 mm and 1-2 mm) on the sorption of the herbicide fluometuron (FM) by a commercial biochar (BC) and how this sorption was affected by biochar aging in soil for 12 and 30 months. In a soil with low FM sorption capacity, the addition of fresh BC (2% and 4%) increased the herbicide sorption similarly for both particle sizes. However, this sorption decreased with BC aging, with a greater reduction observed in the soil amended with the smaller BC particles (90% reduction) compared with the larger ones (48% reduction) at the 4% BC rate. The FM sorption on unamended soil was highly reversible, whereas desorption was strongly reduced in soil with fresh BC. In soil amended with smaller-sized BC, the desorption increased with aging, while no FM desorption occurred in soil amended with fresh or aged larger-sized BC. This different sorption-desorption behavior of FM in BC-amended soil depending on particle size and aging emphasizes the importance of considering these parameters, as the effectiveness of BC applied to soil may be compromised.
We investigated the effect of pH and temperature on avian influenza virus (AIV) in a model system, that being beef slurries, to generate baseline data on the efficacy of food processing interventions on its infectivity in beef. Ten percent (w/v) beef slurries derived from lean ground beef (ca. 85% lean:15% fat) were adjusted to pH 4.4 or pH 5.0 with lactic acid or maintained at pH 5.8, inoculated [ca. 4.5 log10 50% embryo infectious doses (EID50) per mL of slurry] with a low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV) strain (A/rgGyrfalconHAxPR8/2014 H5N1), and incubated at either 23 degrees or 37 degrees C for up to 15 h. At 0, 3, 7, 9, and 15 h of incubation, duplicate aliquots of slurry for a given treatment were analyzed for viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) by real-time, reverse transcriptase, quantitative polyermase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and were analyzed for viable LPAIV via inoculated embryonated chicken egg (ECE) and hemagglutination (HA) assays. Regardless of the pH of the slurry, viral titers decreased by ca. 3.3 log10 EID50 per mL after 15 hat 37 degrees C. In contrast, incubation for 15 h at 23 degrees C delivered reductions of 3.4, 3.0, or 2.1 log10 EID50 per mL in slurries originally adjusted to pH 4.4, pH 5.0, or pH 5.8, respectively. Given the existence of AIV-infected dairy cattle and the considerable volume of meat from cull dairy cows in the beef production chain, if AIV were recovered from edible raw beef tissues at slaughter and/or subsequently found in raw (ground) beef, our findings establish that the risk for zoonotic infection of humans from AIV-contaminated raw beef would be discernably lowered if proper temperature and pH conditions were maintained during further processing.
The synergistic impacts of land use/land cover (LULC) transformations and weather pattern variabilities (WPV) represent a primary driver of hydro-geological instability, threatening agricultural productivity, soil conservation, and water quality. Disentangling the discrete contributions of these stressors to runoff and sediment yield (SY) remains a significant challenge, particularly in complex, confluence-proximal watersheds lacking major hydraulic regulations. This study investigates the Tirumakudalu Narasipura watershed in Karnataka, India, an agriculturally intensive system undergoing rapid peri-urbanization. Leveraging the process-based geospatial interface of the Water Erosion Prediction Project (GeoWEPP), we analyzed hydrological responses over a 24-year period (2000-2023) and projected future trajectories through 2030. To overcome the traditional constraints of GeoWEPP, which was developed for small-scale watersheds (<260 ha), we present a novel upscaling framework utilizing a multi-site multivariate temporal calibration of hydrological response variables to exploit its process-based precision in capturing distributed soil erosion and landscape heterogeneity. This approach is further reinforced by an ancillary data validation to minimize error propagation while model-upscaling. Our findings reveal projected increases in runoff and SY of 14.69% and 49.23%, respectively, between 2000 and 2030. Notably, the sub-decadal acceleration from 2023 to 2030 (17.32% for runoff and 18.51% for SY) underscores a shifting dominance where LULC-driven surface modifications now outweigh climatic variance in forcing hydrologic change. Furthermore, the study quantifies how anthropogenic interventions such as strategic crop selection, tillage intensity, and irrigation regimes act as critical determinants of topsoil preservation. These results provide a scalable, economically feasible framework for precision land stewardship and sustainable watershed management in rapidly developing tropical landscapes.
