Green Technology Center

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have the potential to become a powerful political vision that can support the urgently needed global transition to a shared and lasting prosperity. In December 2014, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General published his report on the SDGs. However, the final goals and targets that will be adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 risk falling short of expectations because of what we call “cockpit-ism”: the illusion that top-down steering by governments and intergovernmental organizations alone can address global problems. In view of the limited effectiveness of intergovernmental efforts and questions about the capacity of national governments to affect change, the SDGs need to additionally mobilize new agents of change such as businesses, cities and civil society. To galvanize such a broad set of actors, multiple perspectives on sustainable development are needed that respond to the various motives and logics of change of these different actors. We propose four connected perspectives which can strengthen the universal relevance of the SDGs: “planetary boundaries” to stress the urgency of addressing environmental concerns and to target governments to take responsibility for (global) public goods; “the safe and just operating space” to highlight the interconnectedness of social and environmental concerns and its distributive consequences; “the energetic society” to benefit from the willingness of a broad group of actors worldwide to take action; and “green competition” to stimulate innovation and new business practices. To realize the transformative potential of the SDGs, these four perspectives should be reflected in the focus and content of the SDGs that will be negotiated in the run up to September 2015 and its further implementation.

Abstract Boron‐doped Li[Ni 0.90 Co 0.05 Mn 0.05 ]O 2 cathodes are synthesized by adding B 2 O 3 during the lithiation of the hydroxide precursor. Density functional theory confirms that boron doping at a level as low as 1 mol% alters the surface energies to produce a highly textured microstructure that can partially relieve the intrinsic internal strain generated during the deep charging of Li[Ni 0.90 Co 0.05 Mn 0.05 ]O 2 . The 1 mol% B‐Li[Ni 0.90 Co 0.05 Mn 0.05 ]O 2 cathode thus delivers a discharge capacity of 237 mAh g −1 at 4.3 V, with an outstanding capacity retention of 91% after 100 cycles at 55 °C, which is 15% higher than that of the undoped Li[Ni 0.90 Co 0.05 Mn 0.05 ]O 2 cathode. This proposed synthesis strategy demonstrates that an optimal microstructure exists for extending the cycle life of Ni‐rich Li[Ni 1‐ x ‐ y Co x Mn y ]O 2 cathodes that have an inadequate cycling stability in electric vehicle applications and indicates that an optimal microstructure can be achieved through surface energy modification.

Abstract This paper provides an overview of green banking as an emerging area of creating competitive advantages and new business opportunities for private sector banks and expanding the mandate of central banks and supervisors to protect the financial system and manage risks of individual financial institutions. Climate change is expected to accelerate and is no longer considered only as an environmental threat because it affects all economic sectors. Furthermore, climate-related risks are causing physical and transitional risks for the financial sector. To mitigate the negative impacts, central banks, supervisors and policymakers started undertaking various green banking initiatives, although the approach taken so far is slightly different between developed and developing countries. In parallel, both private and public financial institutions, individually and collectively, are trying to address the issues on the horizon especially from a risk management perspective. Particularly, private sector banks have developed climate strategies and rolled out diverse green financial instruments to seize the business opportunities. This paper uses the theory of change conceptual framework at the sectoral, institutional and combined level as a tool to identify barriers in green banking and analyze activities that are needed to mitigate those barriers and to reach desired results and impacts.

Platoon formation of highway vehicles has the potential to significantly enhance road safety, improve highway utility, and increase traffic efficiency. However, various uncertainties and disturbances that are present in real‐world driving conditions make the implementation of vehicular platoon a challenging problem. This study presents an H‐infinity control method for a platoon of heterogeneous vehicles with uncertain vehicle dynamics and uniform communication delay. The requirements of string stability, robustness and tracking performance are systematically measured by the H‐infinity norm, and explicitly satisfied by casting into the linear fractional transformation format. A delay‐dependent linear matrix inequality is derived to numerically solve the distributed controllers for each vehicle. The performances of the controlled platoon are theoretically analysed by using a delay‐dependent Lyapunov function which includes a linear quadratic function of states during the delay period. Simulations with a platoon of heterogeneous vehicles are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method under random parameters and external disturbances.

For wireless charging of electric vehicle (EV) batteries, high-frequency magnetic fields are generated from magnetically coupled coils. The large air-gap between two coils may cause high leakage of magnetic fields and it may also lower the power transfer efficiency (PTE). For the first time, in this paper, we propose a new set of coil design formulas for high-efficiency and low harmonic currents and a new design procedure for low leakage of magnetic fields for high-power wireless power transfer (WPT) system. Based on the proposed design procedure, a pair of magnetically coupled coils with magnetic field shielding for a 1-kW-class golf-cart WPT system is optimized via finite-element simulation and the proposed design formulas. We built a 1-kW-class wireless EV charging system for practical measurements of the PTE, the magnetic field strength around the golf cart, and voltage/current spectrums. The fabricated system has achieved a PTE of 96% at the operating frequency of 20.15 kHz with a 156-mm air gap between the coils. At the same time, the highest magnetic field strength measured around the golf cart is 19.8 mG, which is far below the relevant electromagnetic field safety guidelines (ICNIRP 1998/2010). In addition, the third harmonic component of the measured magnetic field is 39 dB lower than the fundamental component. These practical measurement results prove the effectiveness of the proposed coil design formulas and procedure of a WPT system for high-efficiency and low magnetic field leakage.

Reduction of carbon emissions and climate-resilience in cities are becoming important objectives to be achieved in order to ensure sustainable urban development pathways. Traditionally, cities have treated climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in isolation, without addressing their potential synergies, conflicts or trade-offs. Recent studies have shown that this can lead to inefficiencies in urban planning, conflicting policy objectives and lost opportunities for synergistic actions. However, in the last few years, we have observed that cities are increasingly moving towards addressing both mitigation and adaptation in urban planning. Cities need to pay particular attention and understand the rationale of both policy objectives whilst considering the integration of the two policies in urban planning and decision-making. This study presents an analytical framework to evaluate the level of integration of climate mitigation and adaptation in cities’ local climate action plans. We tested this framework in nine selected major cities, representatives from all inhabited continents, which are frontrunners in climate action both in their regions and globally. We applied the framework in order to evaluate the level of mitigation and adaptation integration in cities’ CCAPs and further explored the different types of mitigation—adaptation interrelationships that have been considered. A scoring system was also devised in order to allow comparing and ranking of the different CCAPs for their level of integration of adaptation and mitigation. The paper draws good practices to support cities in developing climate change action plans in an integrated way.

Abstract The demand to develop highly efficient electrocatalysts for renewable energy conversion has dramatically increased over the past few years. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent–organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as promising materials to improve the catalytic efficiency of a variety of electrochemical energy conversion reactions. Compared to 3D bulk MOFs and COFs, which are commonly obtained by typical synthesis routes, 2D MOFs and COFs are achieved through innovative synthesis strategies, and exhibit further benefits in terms of chemical and structural properties. Specifically, the large porosity and ultrathin structure of the 2D materials contribute to exotic properties such as large surface area, mechanical flexibility, enhanced electrical conductivity, and rapid mass transport during reactions, which are highly applicable to electrocatalysis. In this review, the synthesis methods of 2D MOFs and COFs are first discussed. Then, the distinct advantages and recent advances in 2D materials for electrocatalytic reactions, including water splitting, O 2 reduction reaction, CO 2 reduction reaction, and N 2 reduction reaction, are introduced. Finally, based on existing challenges, crucial issues for the development of reliable 2D MOFs and COFs with enhanced catalytic performance are discussed.

Core-shell type nanoalloys in which the Cu atoms uniformly reside as a shell around a core of Sn nanoparticles are achieved by reacting Cu(acac)2 with tin nanoparticles. The core-shell Sn@Cu nanoparticles further demonstrate significantly improved rate capability at higher C rates than Sn@C nanoparticles. Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as ”Supporting Information”. Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

Abstract. Together with emissions of air pollutants and precursors, meteorological conditions play important roles in local air quality through accumulation or ventilation, regional transport, and atmospheric chemistry. In this study, we extensively investigated multi-timescale meteorological effects on the urban air pollution using the long-term measurements data of PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 and meteorological variables over the period of 1999–2016 in Seoul, South Korea. The long-term air quality data were decomposed into trend-free short-term components and long-term trends by the Kolmogorov–Zurbenko filter, and the effects of meteorology and emissions were quantitatively isolated using a multiple linear regression with meteorological variables. In terms of short-term variability, intercorrelations among the pollutants and meteorological variables and composite analysis of synoptic meteorological fields exhibited that the warm and stagnant conditions in the migratory high-pressure system are related to the high PM10 and primary pollutant, while the strong irradiance and low NO2 by high winds at the rear of a cyclone are related to the high O3. In terms of long-term trends, decrease in PM10 (−1.75 µg m−3 yr−1) and increase in O3 (+0.88 ppb yr−1) in Seoul were largely contributed by the meteorology-related trends (−0.94 µg m−3 yr−1 for PM10 and +0.47 ppb yr−1 for O3), which were attributable to the subregional-scale wind speed increase. Comparisons with estimated local emissions and socioeconomic indices like gross domestic product (GDP) growth and fuel consumptions indicate probable influences of the 2008 global economic recession as well as the enforced regulations from the mid-2000s on the emission-related trends of PM10 and other primary pollutants. Change rates of local emissions and the transport term of long-term components calculated by the tracer continuity equation revealed a decrease in contributions of local emissions to the primary pollutants including PM10 and an increase in contributions of local secondary productions to O3. The present results not only reveal an important role of synoptic meteorological conditions on the episodic air pollution events but also give insights into the practical effects of environmental policies and regulations on the long-term air pollution trends. As a complementary approach to the chemical transport modeling, this study will provide a scientific background for developing and improving effective air quality management strategy in Seoul and its metropolitan area.

As most of the forest fires in South Korea are related to human activity, socio-economic factors are critical in estimating their probability. To estimate and analyze how human activity is influencing forest fire probability, this study considered not only environmental factors such as precipitation, elevation, topographic wetness index, and forest type, but also socio-economic factors such as population density and distance from urban area. The machine learning Maximum Entropy (Maxent) and Random Forest models were used to predict and analyze the spatial distribution of forest fire probability in South Korea. The model performance was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve method, and models’ outputs were compared based on the area under the ROC curve (AUC). In addition, a multi-temporal analysis was conducted to determine the relationships between forest fire probability and socio-economic or environmental changes from the 1980s to the 2000s. The analysis revealed that the spatial distribution was concentrated in or around cities, and the probability had a strong correlation with variables related to human activity and accessibility over the decades. The AUC values for validation were higher in the Random Forest result compared to the Maxent result throughout the decades. Our findings can be useful for developing preventive measures for forest fire risk reduction considering socio-economic development and environmental conditions.

This study aims to examine the thermodynamic feasibility of separating sulfur hexafluoride (SF(6)), which is widely used in various industrial fields and is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, from gas mixtures using gas hydrate formation. The key process variables of hydrate phase equilibria, pressure-composition diagram, formation kinetics, and structure identification of the mixed gas hydrates, were closely investigated to verify the overall concept of this hydrate-based SF(6) separation process. The three-phase equilibria of hydrate (H), liquid water (L(W)), and vapor (V) for the binary SF(6) + water mixture and for the ternary N(2) + SF(6) + water mixtures with various SF(6) vapor compositions (10, 30, 50, and 70%) were experimentally measured to determine the stability regions and formation conditions of pure and mixed hydrates. The pressure-composition diagram at two different temperatures of 276.15 and 281.15 K was obtained to investigate the actual SF(6) separation efficiency. The vapor phase composition change was monitored during gas hydrate formation to confirm the formation pattern and time needed to reach a state of equilibrium. Furthermore, the structure of the mixed N(2) + SF(6) hydrate was confirmed to be structure II via Raman spectroscopy. Through close examination of the overall experimental results, it was clearly verified that highly concentrated SF(6) can be separated from gas mixtures at mild temperatures and low pressure conditions.

Drought is a common abiotic stress for terrestrial plants and often affects crop development and yield. Recent studies have suggested that lignin plays a crucial role in plant drought tolerance; however, the underlying molecular mechanisms are still largely unknown. Here, we report that the rice (Oryza sativa) gene CINNAMOYL-CoA REDUCTASE 10 (OsCCR10) is directly activated by the OsNAC5 transcription factor, which mediates drought tolerance through regulating lignin accumulation. CCR is the first committed enzyme in the monolignol synthesis pathway, and the expression of 26 CCR genes was observed to be induced in rice roots under drought. Subcellular localisation assays revealed that OsCCR10 is a catalytically active enzyme that is localised in the cytoplasm. The OsCCR10 transcript levels were found to increase in response to abiotic stresses, such as drought, high salinity, and abscisic acid (ABA), and transcripts were detected in roots at all developmental stages. In vitro enzyme activity and in vivo lignin composition assay suggested that OsCCR10 is involved in H- and G-lignin biosynthesis. Transgenic rice plants overexpressing OsCCR10 showed improved drought tolerance at the vegetative stages of growth, as well as higher photosynthetic efficiency, lower water loss rates, and higher lignin content in roots compared to non-transgenic (NT) controls. In contrast, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated OsCCR10 knock-out mutants exhibited reduced lignin accumulation in roots and less drought tolerance. Notably, transgenic rice plants with root-preferential overexpression of OsCCR10 exhibited higher grain yield than NT controls plants under field drought conditions, indicating that lignin biosynthesis mediated by OsCCR10 contributes to drought tolerance.

Abstract Improved understanding of the potential growth of urban areas at the national and global levels is needed for sustainable urban development. Current panel data analysis and local scale modeling are limited in projecting global urban area growth with large spatial heterogeneities. In this study, we developed country‐specific urban area growth models using the time series data set of global urban extents (1992–2013) and projected the future growth of urban areas under five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Our results indicate the global urban area would increase roughly 40–67% under five SSPs until 2050 relative to the base year of 2013, and this trend would continue to a growth ratio of more than 200% by 2100. The growth of urban areas under relatively unsustainable development pathways (e.g., regional rivalry SSP3 and inequality SSP4) is smaller compared to other SSPs. Although developing countries would remain as leading contributors to the increase of global urban areas in the future, they may exhibit different temporal patterns, that is, plateaued or monotonically increasing trends. This variation is primarily attributed to the compounding effect of the growth in population and gross domestic product. Our urban area data set presents a first country‐level urban area projection under the five SSPs, spanning from 2013 to 2100. This data set has a great potential to support various global change studies, for example, urban sprawl simulation, integrated assessment modeling for sustainable development goals, and investigation of the impact of urbanization on atmospheric emissions, air quality, and human health.

Abstract It is challenging to develop alloying anodes with ultrafast charging and large energy storage using bulk anode materials because of the difficulty of carrier‐ion diffusion and fragmentation of the active electrode material. Herein, a rational strategy is reported to design bulk Bi anodes for Na‐ion batteries that feature ultrafast charging, long cyclability, and large energy storage without using expensive nanomaterials and surface modifications. It is found that bulk Bi particles gradually transform into a porous nanostructure during cycling in a glyme‐based electrolyte, whereas the resultant structure stores Na ions by forming phases with high Na diffusivity. These features allow the anodes to exhibit unprecedented electrochemical properties; the developed Na–Bi half‐cell delivers 379 mA h g −1 (97% of that measured at 1C) at 7.7 A g −1 (20C) during 3500 cycles. It also retained 94% and 93% of the capacity measured at 1C even at extremely fast‐charging rates of 80C and 100C, respectively. The structural origins of the measured properties are verified by experiments and first‐principles calculations. The findings of this study not only broaden understanding of the underlying mechanisms of fast‐charging anodes, but also provide basic guidelines for searching battery anodes that simultaneously exhibit high capacities, fast kinetics, and long cycling stabilities.

Many studies have been conducted to improve economically important livestock traits such as feed efficiency and muscle growth. Genome editing technologies represent a major advancement for both basic research and agronomic biotechnology development. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technical platform is a powerful tool used to engineer specific targeted loci. However, the potential occurrence of off-target effects, including the cleavage of unintended targets, limits the practical applications of Cas9-mediated genome editing. In this study, to minimize the off-target effects of this technology, we utilized D10A-Cas9 nickase to generate myostatin-knockout (MSTN KO) chickens via primordial germ cells. D10A-Cas9 nickase (Cas9n)-mediated MSTN KO chickens exhibited significantly larger skeletal muscles in the breast and leg. Degrees of skeletal muscle hypertrophy and hyperplasia induced by myostatin deletion differed by sex and muscle type. The abdominal fat deposition was dramatically lower in MSTN KO chickens than in wild-type chickens. Our results demonstrate that the D10A-Cas9 technical platform can facilitate precise and efficient targeted genome engineering and may broaden the range of applications for genome-edited chickens in practical industrialization and as animal models of human diseases.

Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producing country. The oil palm industry (plantation and milling) generates large amounts of solid waste in the form of empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm kernel shells (PKS), mesocarp fiber (MF), oil palm fronds (OPF), and oil palm trunks (OPT). This leftover waste, collectively termed oil palm biomass (OPB), causes severe environmental pollution, thereby threatening the sustainability of the oil palm industry. Upgrading OPB by thermochemical processes (torrefaction and pyrolysis) has attracted significant interest as a means of recycling the residues and mitigating the environmental damage. This study reviews the previous research on the environment-friendly utilization of OPB in Indonesia. First, general information is presented on OPB in Indonesia (availability, properties, and governmental policy). Second, the torrefaction of OPB for the production of upgraded solid fuel is summarized. Third, the pyrolysis of OPB to produce biochar is reviewed for use as a soil amendment and in carbon storage. The market perspective and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the thermally treated OPB are discussed, targeting the generation of electricity (OPB torrefaction) and agricultural soil enhancement (OPB biochar). The recycling of OPB is expected to contribute to the sustainability and economic success of the oil palm industry and also the net-zero 2060 in Indonesia.

Abstract. The air quality of the megacities in populated and industrialized regions like East Asia is affected by both local and regional emission sources. The combined effect of regional transport and local emissions on multiday haze was investigated through a synthetic analysis of PM2. 5 sampled at both an urban site in Seoul, South Korea and an upwind background site on Deokjeok Island over the Yellow Sea during a severe multiday haze episode in late February 2014. Inorganic components and carbonaceous species of daily PM2. 5 samples were measured, and gaseous pollutants, local meteorological factors, and synoptic meteorological conditions were also determined. A dominance of fine-mode particles (PM2. 5 ∕ PM10 ∼ 0.8), a large secondary inorganic fraction (76 %), high OC ∕ EC (> 7), and highly oxidized aerosols (oxygen-to-carbon ratio of ∼ 0.6 and organic-mass-to-carbon ratio of ∼ 1.9) under relatively warm, humid, and stagnant conditions characterize the multiday haze episode in Seoul; however, the early and late stages of the episode show different chemical compositions of PM2. 5. High concentrations of sulfate in both Seoul and the upwind background in the early stage suggest a significant regional influence on the onset of the multiday haze. At the same time, high concentrations of nitrate and organic compounds in Seoul, which are local and highly correlated with meteorological factors, suggest the contribution of local emissions and secondary formation under stagnant meteorological conditions to the haze. A slow eastward-moving high-pressure system from southern China to the East China Sea induces the regional transport of aerosols and potential gaseous precursors for secondary aerosols from the North China Plain in the early stage but provides stagnant conditions conducive to the accumulation and the local formation of aerosols in the late stage. A blocking ridge over Alaska that developed during the episode hinders the zonal propagation of synoptic-scale systems and extends the haze period to several days. This study provides chemical insights into haze development sequentially by regional transport and local sources, and shows that the synoptic condition plays an important role in the dynamical evolution of long-lasting haze in the Asian continental outflow region.

For safe and reliable autonomous driving systems, prediction of surrounding vehicles' future behavior and potential risks are critical. The state-of-the-art prediction algorithms tend to show limited performance on long-term predictions due to their deterministic nature. In this paper, a probabilistic lateral motion prediction algorithm is proposed based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) approach. The MLP model consists of two parts; target lane and trajectory models. In order to develop an intuitive and accurate prediction algorithm, a lane-based trajectory prediction model is introduced based on the fact that vehicles drive within a lane except for during lane changes. More specifically, a set of three representative trajectories with different levels of lane-change positions are generated for each target lane, and real-world traffic data is categorized by each trajectory for MLP training. These target lane and trajectory models enable the stochastic MLP modeling and training. The proposed MLP model outputs probabilities of how likely a vehicle will follow each trajectory and each lane for a given input of vehicle position history including current position. For training the MLP model, Next Generation Simulation traffic data are used. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm detects lane-changes one to one and a half second earlier than existing methods and three seconds before lane crossing with about ninety percentages accuracy.

Robot-assisted natural disaster management is recently employed to aid human rescuers at diverse disaster sites. Due to its compactness and availability, drone has become an effective tool for searching survivors from confined space such as collapsed building or underground area. However, the current scope of research in this field is limited because the research tends to focus on increasing accuracy of 3d mapping, constructed by controlling quadrotor flight at disaster sites. Perceiving disaster environment is necessary for rescue mission, but finding victims at the earliest time is more critical for practical rescue operations. In this work, we propose an overall architecture for drone hardware that enables fast exploration of GPS-denied environment, and practical methods for victim detection are introduced. We employ DJI Matrice 100 and utilize hokuyo lidar for global mapping and Intel RealSense for local mapping. Our results show that fusing these sensors can assist rescuers to find victims of natural disaster in unknown environments, and the detection system is insensitive to illumination change.

This study investigates the effects of compact urban development on air pollution, taking into account both the spatial distribution of pollutants resulting from an increase in inner urban densities and the dispersion of pollutants associated with an increase in outer green open spaces. The empirical analysis is based upon a panel data model covering 17 cities in Korea from 1996–2009; this approach is used because urban air pollution is influenced by spatial and temporal changes. Measuring the air pollution level by distance from city centers demonstrates that the spatial concentration of emission sources does not necessarily increase air pollution levels. The two-way fixed effects model, which is employed to control both individual (regional) and time effects, shows that SO2 decreases as the proportion of green area increases, while a rise in net density leads to an increase of NO2. Both effects are observed in the case of CO dispersion by green area as well as emission source concentration by high densities. Therefore, there is no clear impact of compact urban development on air quality, which is instead related to pollutant-specific characteristics and the emission source.