Environmental Science: Advances Blog

The past decade has seen a huge growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches being applied to challenges in chemical science. These approaches are powerful tools in improving our understanding of the environment to build a cleaner, safer, more sustainable and equitable planet. This special collection of Environmental Science: Advances welcomes all studies that use AI and ML to advance our understanding of the physical environment, environmental health, and environmental sustainability, or to provide solutions to challenges in these areas.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection.

Environmental Science: Advances is a gold open access journal and covers advances in all areas related to environmental sustainability. Authors are welcome to submit original research as a Communication, Full Paper or Review article. Please contact the editorial office to register your interest or for more information. Alternatively, you can submit your manuscript here, quoting code ‘VAAIML22‘ when prompted.

Guest Editor: Hemi Luan (South University of Science and Technology)

Submission deadline: 30th April 2023

Submit your manuscript, quoting ‘VAAIML22’: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/va

APCs are waived until mid-2024.

We’re delighted to share this fantastic infographic which explores the creation of a compostable bioleather with superior flame-retardance and low environmental impact. Their microbial nanocellulose leather has a significantly smaller carbon footprint than both synthetic leather and cotton, and marks a big step towards a circular materials economy. This paper was published in Issue 3 of Environmental Science: Advances. Read the entire open-access article here at:

‘Microbial nanocellulose biotextiles for a circular materials economy’ 

T. N. Schiros, H. H. Lu et al., Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022,1, 276-284

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2VA00050D

The Royal Society of Chemistry was proud to attend the 11^th National Conference on Environmental Chemistry, held in Harbin China, from the 25^th to the 29^th of July. The theme of this year’s conference was “Innovating Environmental Sciences, Low-Carbon Protecting Environment and Health” which fully reflected the interdisciplinary work presented.

At the conference more than 50 different branches of environmental science, including toxicology and health, remediation technology and environmental policy, met to present their work and participate in conference exhibitions.

RSC representatives at the National Conference on Environmental Chemistry hosted a booth and engaged with researchers and answered questions about our portfolio of hybrid and Gold Open Access environmental journals.

Dr. Guanqun Song presented a talk on “Publishing with the Royal Society of Chemistry” in a session chaired by Professor Defeng Xing (Advisory Board Member, Environmental Science Water Research & Technology). The audience were able to ask insightful questions that they might have about the peer review process and tips on how to publish in our journals.

In addition, RSC editorial board members were able to find time in between presentations for a lunch and catch up. This included board members from Environmental Science Advances (Editor in Chief Zongwei Cai, Associate Editor Liwu Zhang) and advisory board members from Environmental Science: Atmospheres, Environmental Science Water & Technology, Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts and Environmental Science: Nano.

If you attended the conference and still have questions about our journals that you would like answered, please feel free to reach out to the editorial office or find a home for your research in our environmental portfolio.

We’re delighted to share this great infographic about the potential environmental impact of tank mixtures containing broad spectrum fungicides tebuconazole and prothioconazole on the degradation of the herbicide iodosulfuron-methyl-sodium in US American and German soils under controlled laboratory conditions, which was published in Issue 1 of Environmental Science: Advances. Read the entire open-access article at:

‘Decelerated degradation of a sulfonylurea herbicide in four fungicide-treated soils’

Christiaan Wijntjes et al., Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022, 1, 70-82

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1VA00021G

We’re excited to share this latest eye-catching infographic about the evaluation of two separate full-scale post aerobic digestion (PAD) reactors to determine process performance and key operational parameters, which was published in Issue 1 of Environmental Science: Advances. Read the entire open-access article at:

‘Post aerobic digestion (PAD) is a solids sidestream nutrient removal process that utilizes native carbon: performance and key operational parameters from two full-scale PAD reactors’

Leon Downing et al., Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022, 1, 216-228

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2VA00045H

In order to solve the climate crisis and advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), researchers from many different scientific disciplines need to work together and this is reflected in the wide scope of Environmental Science: Advances. Our journal proudly encourages new and exciting partnerships that span subject areas while solving environmental problems.

Environmental Science: Advances complements the Royal Society of Chemistry’s existing Environmental Science journals (Environmental Science: Atmospheres, Environmental Science: Nano, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts and Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology) which are well-respected in the community for their commitment to quality and impactful science. Our journal maintains these high standards while also providing a home for broader environmental science work.

Scope

The scope of Environmental Science: Advances spans the chemical, physical, biological and information sciences while also welcoming work from topics that include engineering, ecology, meteorology, oceanography, land management, soil science, water research, geology, atmospheric science, microbiology, geoscience, deforestation, and agrisciences… We could go on! Interesting and impactful research from any discipline that will contribute to the understanding of the environment and sustainability would fit perfectly in Environmental Science: Advances.

How to publish your next work with us

If you are interested in publishing with us, get in touch with us at esadvances-RSC@RSC.org with a proposed title and abstract so that we can discuss the next steps or submit to our journal directly.

Environmental Science: Advances is a gold open access journal with all article processing charges waived until mid-2024 so all our articles are currently free-to-publish and free-to-read. We hope you’ll enjoy reading and being part of our truly interdisciplinary journal!

We’re excited to share this fantastic new infographic about the fabrication of flexible tunable copper sulfide-based membrane for seawater desalination, which was published in Issue 1 of Environmental Science: Advances. Read the entire open-access article at:

‘A flexible copper sulfide composite membrane with tunable plasmonic resonance absorption for near-infrared light-driven seawater desalination’

Shiping Yang and Zhenfeng Bian et al., Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022, 1, 110-120

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1VA00043H

Urgent action is needed to combat the climate emergency and associated impacts – and across the world, our community are collaborating to address UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We have put together a collection of leading content on marine litter and microplastics from across our energy and environmental science journals. This diverse collection features work on the detection of microplastics in water, their fate and mitigation pathways– vital information that will help us to combat climate change and address SDG14.

Read on to discover this exciting collection, featuring:

Fluorogenic hyaluronan nanogels for detection of micro- and nanoplastics in water by Luca Prodi, Damiano Genovese et al. Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2022,9, 582-588

The fate of plastic in the ocean environment – a minireview by Helge Niemann et al. Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2021,23, 198-212

Microplastics in ecosystems: their implications and mitigation pathways by Manjusri Misra and Amar K. Mohanty et al .Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022,1, 9-29

Join us in tackling the climate crisis

Contribute to our cross-journal collection showcasing research advancing UN SDGs

The principles of the UN SDGs align closely with our own – to help the chemical science community make the world a better place. So that we can achieve this, we are curating a cross-journal collection across our energy and environmental science journals.

This collection will cover studies which advance our understanding of the climate situation, and present new technologies & innovations to combat climate change – inclusive of environmental engineering, materials science, energy science disciplines and beyond.

We invite you to publish your next paper in this collection – quote ‘XXSDGN1422’ when submitting your manuscript. You can put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – which are less than 9 weeks after submission across all our journals.

If you have some exciting results to publish on these topics, we would be delighted to hear from you – we are also very happy to guide you on which RSC journal would be the most appropriate for your paper.

We are delighted to be sharing with you recent Advance Articles from Environmental Science: Advances.

Environmental Science: Advances is an interdisciplinary, gold open access journal that publishes advances in all areas related to environmental sustainability. The journal welcomes and celebrates research that contributes to our understanding of the environment, and to the advancement of several UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Read our recent Advance Articles now

We have recently accepted several papers across the full spectrum of environmental science, ranging from insights into coccolithophore electrochemistry to pollutant emissions and implications for policy. Read on to hear from one of our authors, Richard Compton, about their work.

Single-entity coccolithophore electrochemistry shows size is no guide to the degree of calcification

Richard Compton et al.

Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2022, Advance Article

DOI: 10.1039/D2VA00025C

Professor Richard Compton on the work: Marine phytoplankton play a crucial but largely unexplored role in the global carbon cycle sequestering in excess of 10¹⁵ g of CaCO₃ to the deep ocean each year. This is directly comparable to the flux of carbon dioxide released by mankind. Plankton in the ocean play at least as important a role as do trees on land in fixing carbon dioxide!

Data, essential for realistic climate models, on the calcium carbonate content of plankton populations has hitherto been limited to sampling followed by wet chemistry or crude estimates via 2-dimensional microscopy imaging.

Our paper shows how electrochemistry can be used to provide a high throughput single entity measurement of particulate inorganic carbon and reports that different coccolithophores, E.huxleyi, G.oceanica and C.baarudii have widely different CaCO₃ masses ranging over three orders of magnitude from 2.6 pg to 8.3 ng per plankton, and that surprisingly within a species the calcium carbonate content is NOT related to the cell size.

The implication is that the speciation of plankton populations must be monitored not simply their extent such as results from the commonly used satellite monitoring of plankton fluorescence.

The work, a collaboration between Oxford Chemistry and Earth Sciences, entitled Monitoring Ocean Ecosystems,  is supported by the Oxford Martin School (https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/programmes/ ) and is also addressing the use of electrochemistry for easy plankton speciation sensing. 

We hope you enjoy reading these articles – get future articles delivered straight to your inbox by signing up to E-alerts.

Urgent action is needed to combat the climate emergency and associated impacts – and across the world, our community are collaborating to address UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We have put together a collection of leading content on clean water and sanitation from across our energy and environmental science journals. This diverse collection features work on wastewater treatment and disinfection, water resource recovery and monitoring water quality – vital technologies that will help us to improve access to sustainable water for all and address SDG 6.

Read on to discover this exciting collection, featuring:

Opportunities for nanotechnology to enhance electrochemical treatment of pollutants in potable water and industrial wastewater – a perspective by Paul Westerhoff et al.

The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda – a review of the progress so far and future development options by Tove A. Larsen et al.

A case study on tap water quality in large buildings recommissioned after extended closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic by Maryam Salehi et al.

A flexible copper sulfide composite membrane with tunable plasmonic resonance absorption for near-infrared light-driven seawater desalination by Zhenmin Xu, Shiping Yang, Zhenfeng Bian et al.

Join us in tackling the climate crisis and contribute to our cross-journal collection showcasing research advancing UN SDGs

The principles of the UN SDGs align closely with our own – to help the chemical science community make the world a better place. So that we can achieve this, we are curating a cross-journal collection across our energy and environmental science journals.

This collection will cover studies which advance our understanding of the climate situation, and present new technologies & innovations to combat climate change – inclusive of environmental engineering, materials science, energy science disciplines and beyond.

We invite you to publish your next paper in this collection – quote ‘XXSDG0622’ when submitting your manuscript. You can put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – which are less than 9 weeks after submission across all our journals.

If you have some exciting results to publish on these topics, we would be delighted to hear from you – we are also very happy to guide you on which RSC journal would be the most appropriate for your paper.

Submit your manuscript to the collection