Methane pyrolysis produces hydrogen and carbon materials, but some approaches based on chemical vapour deposition actually consume hydrogen to mitigate unwanted side reactions. Here Peden et al. use gas recycling in a multi-pass floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition reactor to produce hydrogen alongside carbon nanotube aerogels.

The co-production of carbon nanotubes and hydrogen from methane is achieved by recycling process gas in a continuous flow reactor. Developed from a single-pass reactor for carbon nanotube production, the multi-pass reactor offers efficiency improvements and the net production of hydrogen as an output value stream.

By optimizing the timing of electricity purchases for electric vehicle (EV) charging at home, as well as shifting electricity purchases for other household loads, US EV owners could reduce their lifetime charging costs by 40–90%, and lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from household electricity use by 70–250%. Integrating EVs with homes can increase the greenhouse gas reductions they deliver, while reducing the cost of EV ownership.

New research finds that policymakers coleading energy scenario design has the potential both to better align scenarios with policymakers’ priorities and to question current policy, by substantially reducing energy use at half of the cost of technology-focused approaches.

npj Sustainable Agriculture - Sustainable soil management practices are associated with increases in crop defense through soil microbiome changes

Data-center operators try to recycle retired hardware, but a broken global recycling infrastructure stands in the way.

Authors converted waste ozonation catalysts into carbon-based nano-single-atom-site catalysts through in-situ carbonization of self-doped biological secretions, enabling efficient regeneration and res...

This Orphan Crop Genomics and Improvement Collection welcomes submissions on orphan crops genomics, genetics, and breeding.

Public responses are critical in renewable energy project planning and siting. This Review examines these responses and describes the need for effective and meaningful public engagement.

Interregional transmission is key to a cost-efficient, reliable and cleaner US grid. Senga et al. find that current legislative proposals can increase reliability while capturing some of the cost and emissions benefits of a cost-optimized grid.

Möhring et al. assess the expected effects of a global transformation of agricultural pest management. They find positive contributions to multiple sustainability challenges, assess drivers and discus...

Higher-income neighbourhoods rebuild and improve after disasters while lower-income areas do not return to pre-disaster conditions.

Micro- and nano-plastics in city air raise health concerns, as polymer analysis by pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry links exposure to higher cardiopulmonary and lung cancer mortality in ...

Corals, Coasts and One Health is focused on addressing the urgent challenges facing coral reefs and connected coastal ecosystems. The conference program will bridge scales and disciplines, linking mic...

Soil carbon loss from human agriculture-related land use in the dry tropics largely offsets gains in northern lands, leading to a small net sink of 0.34 ± 0.30 PgC yr−1 at a global scale.

Wildfires are becoming one of the defining climate-related crises of the twenty-first century. We argue that their inclusion in the Loss & Damage framework of the United Nations Framework Conventi...

npj Emerging Contaminants - Microbial remediation of microplastic-contaminated soil, focusing on mechanisms, benefits, and research gaps

This bold approach could galvanize countries attending the COP30 summit.

Integrating CO2 capture and electrochemical conversion may lower energy consumption relative to the separated processes, but scale-up is limited by low carbon conversion and energy-intensive solvent regeneration. Now, research shows that piperazine, alongside a Ni single-atom catalyst, allows effective, stable CO2 capture, and conversion to CO in a low-energy process.

npj Urban Sustainability - Key recommendations for cities committed to climate neutrality