Abstract
The “dual-carbon” strategy promotes the development of the wastewater treatment sector and is an important tool for leading science and technology innovations. Based on the global climate change and the new policies introduced by China, this paper described the new needs for the development of wastewater treatment science and technology. It offered a retrospective analysis of the historical trajectory of scientific and technological advancements in this field. Utilizing bibliometrics, it delineated the research hotspots within wastewater treatment, notably highlighting materials genomics, artificial intelligence, and synthetic biology. Furthermore, it posited that, in the future, the field of wastewater treatment should follow the paths of technological innovations with multi-dimensional needs, such as carbon reduction, pollution reduction, health, standardisation, and intellectualisation. The purpose of this paper was to provide references and suggestions for scientific and technological innovations in the field of wastewater treatment, and to contribute to the common endeavor of moving toward a Pollution-Free Planet.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Al Sharabati M, Abokwiek R, Al-Othman A, Tawalbeh M, Karaman C, Orooji Y, Karimi F (2021). Biodegradable polymers and their nano-composites for the removal of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) from wastewater: a review. Environmental Research, 202: 111694
Fan F, Wu G, Yang Y, Liu F, Qian Y, Yu Q, Ren H, Geng J (2023). A graph neural network model with a transparent decision-making process defines the applicability domain for environmental estrogen screening. Environmental Science & Technology, 57(46): 18236–18245
Hu Y, Liang M, Zhang Y, Wang K (2021). Study on operation efficiency and carbon emission characteristics of A2/O + MBR process. China Environmental Science, 41(9): 4439–4446 (in Chinese)
Jin L, Sun X, Ren H, Huang H (2023). Hotspots and trends of biological water treatment based on bibliometric review and patents analysis. Journal of Environmental Sciences (China), 125: 774–785
Kang D, Zhao X, Wang N, Suo Y, Yuan J, Peng Y (2023). Redirecting carbon to recover VFA to facilitate biological short-cut nitrogen removal in wastewater treatment: a critical review. Water Research, 238: 120015
Li J, Wang J, Mu H, Hu H, Wang J, Ren H, Wu B (2023). Prediction of adsorptive activities of MOFs for pollutants in aqueous phase based on machine learning. ACS ES&T Engineering, 3(9): 1258–1266
Li L Q, Wang X H, Miao J Y, Abulimiti A, Jing X S, Ren N Q (2022). Carbon neutrality of wastewater treatment: a systematic concept beyond the plant boundary. Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, 11: 100180
Rockström J, Steffen W, Noone K, Persson Å, Chapin F S III, Lambin E F, Lenton T M, Scheffer M, Folke C, Schellnhuber H J, et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461(7263): 472–475
Sun X, Jin L, Zhou F, Jin K, Wang L, Zhang X, Ren H, Huang H (2022). Patent analysis of chemical treatment technology for wastewater: Status and future trends. Chemosphere, 307 (Pt 4): 135802
Yang Z, Sun H, Zhou L, Arhin S G, Papadakis V G, Goula M A, Liu G, Zhang Y, Wang W (2022). Bioaugmentation with well-constructed consortia can effectively alleviate ammonia inhibition of practical manure anaerobic digestion. Water Research, 215: 118244
Zhang H, Quan H, Song S, Sun L, Lu H (2023). Comprehensive assessment of toxicity and environmental risk associated with sulfamethoxazole biodegradation in sulfur-mediated biological wastewater treatment. Water Research, 246: 120753
Zhao L, Dai T J, Qiao Z, Sun P Z, Hao J Y, Yang Y K (2020). Application of artificial intelligence to wastewater treatment: A bibliometric analysis and systematic review of technology, economy, management, and wastewater reuse. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 133: 169–182
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Center for Basic Sciences of China (No. 52388101), the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology (China) (No. BK20220012), and the Excellent Research Program of Nanjing University (China) (No. ZYJH005).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interests The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Additional information
Author Biography
Hongqiang Ren an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and currently holds positions as a professor, doctoral supervisor, and dean at School of the Environment, Nanjing University. He is the head of National Excellent Engineer Team “Industrial Wastewater Treatment Technology and Equipment”, and the project leader of Basic Science Center Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Water Quality Risk Control Engineering). He has long been engaged in the innovative research on industrial wastewater treatment and prevention and control of water pollution in industrial parks, published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and 5 monographs, authorized more than 120 invention patents in China and over 40 patents in the US and the European Union, presided over the compilation of more than 100 international and domestic standards. He has won a total of 17 important awards including 3 second prizes of the National Technological Invention Award, 1 second prize of the National Natural Science Award, 1 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Science and Technology Innovation Award, 7 first prizes of the Provincial and Ministerial Science and Technology Awards, 1 ISO Outstanding Contribution Award, and 1 China Standard Innovation Contribution Award.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, H., Ma, R. & Ren, H. Scientific and technological innovations of wastewater treatment in China. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 18, 72 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1832-3
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1832-3