Open Science has been turned into a global movement with rising number of countries mapping out their routes towards science systems that are more open, inclusive, and accessible (UNESCO, 2023). However, it is now well established that the transition to open science and reaching its full potential requires a shift in the culture of and partnerships for science (UNESCO, 2023); a cultural shift towards reforming scientific communities so that they embrace more collaboration rather than competition. While the shift in research culture can be a unique journey for individuals, Ph.D. students as newcomers in scientific communities can be influenced by their supervisors’ mindsets and practices such that restrictions and/or a lack of incentives on open practices by supervisors is among the most frequently mentioned barriers throughout the open science life cycle (Gownaris et al., 2022). Haven et al., (2023) found that when a Ph.D. candidate works with a supervisor who shares data, the likelihood of the candidate also sharing data increases. These researchers believe that even when a Ph.D. student is knowledgeable about open science practices at the beginning of her/his Ph.D. journey, having a supervisor who role models these practices can be helpful (Haven et al., 2023). Given the significant influence of supervisors on Ph.D. students and the critical importance of open science, fostering a dynamic dialogue among supervisors to share their experiences and discuss current developments is essential for realizing full potential of open science. 

Though increasing food supply in order to meet the rising demand for nutrition is a global social imperative, reducing the dependence on imports of essential food commodities is both an economic and a geo-political imperative for national governments. However, in light of the Sustainable Development Goals, although Zero Hunger (SDG2) and Good Health and Well-Being (SDG3) can be ensured within a country when the inhabitants are well-nourished and staple food items remain affordable to one and all, oftentimes, there are trade-offs in the process, with the environmental dimensions—SDGs 13 (Climate action), 14 (Life below water) and 15 (Life on Land). In this paper, using a combination of Environmental-Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the authors have evaluated the eco-efficiency of 169 wheat cultivation systems in the Golestan province in the north of Iran. Benchmarking performance based on the best-performing wheat farms and optimizing (decreasing essentially) the consumption of resources, will enable an average reduction of between 10% and 16% in global warming, acidification, eutrophication, and non-renewable energy usage of the wheat cultivation systems in the case study region. The authors recommend the use of this combination not only for wheat cultivation in other regions of the world, but also for other agricultural systems.

Hydrochar is produced through a process called hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and constitutes a carbon-rich solid material with different remarkable applications. This study investigated the effects of wood ash on the physicochemical and morphological properties of biosludge-derived hydrochar in pelleted form relevant to the use of the pellets as a soil nutritional and liming agent and as a biofuel source. The hydrochar was mechanically compressed into uniformly-sized pellets under applied pressures of 4 and 8 kN after blending with varying percentages of wood ash in the order 0, 20 and 50%. The pure and blended pellets were characterized to determine the impact of wood ash on key properties, correlated to the two applications mentioned above. Results demonstrated a strong relationship between key features of the pellets and ash proportion. The wood ash-blended hydrochar pellets showed good hydrophobicity as a consequence of increased contents of alkali and alkaline earth metals, but were low in aromatic functional groups compared to the pure hydrochar pellet. Furthermore, the heating value of the pure hydrochar pellet was about 4% higher than that of its parent material and indicates that this pellet has the capacity to serve as a source of energy. The study generally reveals that blending hydrochar produced from biosludge under HTC conditions with up to 20%–50% of wood ash and mechanically compressing into homogeneous pellets has promising potential for a nutrient-rich material that can enhance soil fertility.

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) has been seen as a potentially beneficial process for converting wet biomass into value-added products. It is, however, necessary to overcome the challenges associated with handling the powdered form of hydrochar—a solid product of the HTC process—by controlling the formation of dust and facilitating smoother transportation and distribution in a potentially wide marketplace. In this paper, the authors investigate the environmental consequences of different alternatives for using hydrochar pellets produced from mixed sludges from pulp and paper mills in Sweden, using the environmental life cycle assessment (E-LCA). Two scenarios for possible end-uses of hydrochar in combined heat and power (CHP) plants as a source of energy (heat and electricity) were assessed. In these scenarios, hydrochar pellets were assumed to be combusted in CHP plants, thereby avoiding the use of combustible solid wastes (Scenario A) and coal (Scenario B), respectively, to recover energy in the form of electricity and heat. The environmental damages to Human Health, Ecosystem Quality, Climate Change, and Resources are evaluated based on 1 tonne of dry sludge as the functional unit. The results from this analysis illustrate that Scenario B, in which hydrochar replaces coal, offers the greatest reduction in all the environmental damage characterizations, except the Resources category. The displacement of energy-based coal due to hydrochar combustion contributed most significantly to the environmental damages wrought by the system—ranging from 52% in Resources to 93% in Ecosystem Quality. Overall, the results highlight that the application of hydrochar pellets for energy recovery to offset waste- and coal-based energy sources has great environmental benefits. The favorability of sludge hydrochar over solid wastes as fuel for CHP plants may be counter-intuitive at first, since HTC is an energy-intensive process, but when accounting for the necessity of dependence on imports of wastes for instance, the hydrochar pellet may well emerge as a good option for CHPs in Sweden.

Paddy fields emit considerable amounts of methane (CH4), which is a potent greenhousegas (GHG) and, thereby, causes significant environmental impacts, even as they generate wealth andjobs directly in the agricultural sector, and indirectly in the food-processing sector. Application ofbiochar in rice production systems will not just help to truncate their carbon footprints, but alsoadd to the bottom-line. In this work, the authors have reviewed the literature on climate change,human health, and economic impacts of using organic residues to make biochar for the additionto croplands especially to rice paddy fields. Biochar-bioenergy systems range in scale from smallhousehold cook-stoves to large industrial pyrolysis plants. Biochar can be purveyed in dierentforms—raw, mineral-enriched, or blended with compost. The review of published environmental lifecycle assessment (E-LCA) studies showed biochar has the potential to mitigate the carbon footprint offarming systems through a range of mechanisms. The most important factors are the stabilization ofthe carbon in the biochar and the generation of recoverable energy from pyrolysis gases produced asco-products with biochar as well as decreased fertiliser requirement and enhanced crop productivity.The quantitative review of E-LCA studies concluded that the carbon footprint of rice produced inbiochar-treated soil was estimated to range from -1.43 to 2.79 kg CO2-eq per kg rice grain, implying asignificant reduction relative to rice produced without a biochar soil amendment. The suppressionof soil-methane emission due to the biochar addition is the dominant process with a negativecontribution of 40–70% in the climate change mitigation of rice production. The review of the lifecycle cost studies on biochar use as an additive in farmlands demonstrated that biochar applicationcan be an economically-feasible approach in some conditions. Strategies like the subsidization ofthe initial biochar capital cost and assignment of a non-trivial price for carbon abatement in futurepricing mechanisms will enhance the economic benefits for the rice farmers.

Sweden is one of the largest exporters of pulp and paper products in the world. It follows that huge quantities of sludge rich in carbonaceous organic material and containing heavy metals are generated. This paper carried out a comparative environmental analysis of three different technologies, which can be adopted to produce biochar and recover energy from the biosludge, using landfilling as the reference case. These three thermochemical biosludge management systems—using incineration, pyrolysis, and hydrothermal carbonization (HTC)—were modeled using life cycle assessment (LCA). Heat generated in the incineration process (System A) was considered to be for captive consumption within the kraft pulp mills. It was assumed that the biochars—pyrochar and hydrochar—produced from pyrolysis (System B) and HTC (System C), respectively, were added to the forest soils. The LCA results show that all the alternative systems considerably improve the environmental performance of biosludge management, relative to landfilling. For all systems, there are net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (–0.89, –1.43, and –1.13 tonnes CO2‐equivalent per tonne dry matter biosludge in Systems A, B, and C, respectively). System B resulted in the lowest potential eutrophication and terrestrial ecotoxicity impacts, whereas System C had the least acidification potential. The results of this analysis show that, from an environmental point of view, biochar soil amendment as an alternative method for handling pulp and paper mill biosludge is preferable to energy recovery. However, an optimal biochar system needs to factor in the social and economic contexts as well.

This paper evaluates the environmental impacts of different alternatives for handling of sludge from paper and pulp mills in Sweden, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The common practice of incineration of biosludge with energy recovery followed by landfilling of ash (System A) was compared with the alternative of digesting sludge anaerobically to produce biogas using different digestate residue management options. The digestate produced from anaerobic digestion (AD) was assumed to be incinerated for heat energy recovery in System B or pyrolyzed for biochar production in System C to be mixed with forest soils. The impact categories considered in this work are climate change, non-renewable energy use, mineral extraction, aquatic ecotoxicity, carcinogens and non-carcinogens. The LCA results demonstrate that the two proposed systems significantly reduce the environmental impacts of biosludge management relative to incineration. An 85% reduction in the aquatic ecotoxicity impact is achieved in System C, due to the reduced mobility of heavy metals in biochar relative to ash. System C, on the whole, outperformed the other two, leading the authors to the recommendation that the use of pulp and paper mill biosludge in biogas-biochar production systems is preferable to merely recovering energy from it.

There is a growing body of research that recognizes the potentials of biochar application in agricultural production systems. However, little is known about the effects of biochar, especially hydrochar, on production of containerized seedlings under nursery conditions. This study aimed to test the effects of hydrochar application on growth, quality, nutrient and heavy metal contents, and mycorrhizal association of containerized pine seedlings. The hydrochar used in this study was produced through hydrothermal carbonization of paper mill biosludge at 200 °C. Two forms of hydrochar (powder and pellet) were mixed with peat at ratios of 10% and 20% (v/v) under three levels of applied commercial fertilizer (nil, half and full rates). Application of hydrochar had positive or neutral effects on shoot biomass and stem diameter compared with control seedlings (without hydrochar) under tested fertilizer levels. Analysis of the natural logarithmic response ratios (LnRR) of quality index and nutrient and heavy metal uptake revealed that application of 20% (v/v) hydrochar powder or pellet with 50% fertilizer resulted in same quality pine seedlings with similar heavy metal (Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn and Cr) and nutrient (P, K, Ca and Mg) contents as untreated seedlings supplied with 100% fertilizer. Colonization percentage by ectomycorrhizae significantly increased when either forms of hydrochar were applied at a rate of 20% under unfertilized condition. The results of this study implied that application of proper rates of hydrochar from biosludge with adjusted levels of liquid fertilizer may reduce fertilizer requirements in pine nurseries.

The combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysistechnologies could be a novel energy-biochar productionsystem to maximize energy and nutrient recovery frompulp and paper mill sludge. Herein, the life-cycle energy productionand emissions reduction of sludge treatment from atypical pulp and paper mill were investigated, in which alternativeuses of biogas for industrial or household application,in different regions of the world, were assessed. Thethree scenarios considered for different end-uses of biogasare: (A) biogas for vehicle fuel in the transportation sectorin Sweden, (B) biogas for heat and electricity in the powersector in Brazil, and (C) biogas for cooking in households inChina. The results of Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment(E-LCA) show that for all these three scenarios, the use ofbiogas and pyrolysis gas contributes most to emissions mitigation,while the dewatering and drying processes carriedout on the sludge, contribute the most to the environmentalemissions. Addition of biochar to the soil, contributes significantlyto a reduction in global warming by sequesteringcarbon in the soil. Compared to scenarios B and C, ScenarioA, in which biogas substitutes gasoline in transportation, andheat from combusted pyrolysis gases is used for district heatingin Sweden, demonstrates the highest environmental performancefor all the evaluated impact categories.