Comprehensive Socio-Ecologo-Economic Assessment of Agricultural Efficiency in China

Modern agriculture aims to coordinate the contradiction between the development and utilization of agricultural resources and environmental protection by using scientific and technological achievements and management methods, so as to obtain good ecological benefit, social benefit and economic benefit. In this paper, 12 indexes are selected to build an evaluation system of comprehensive agricultural benefit. The agricultural data from 2013 to 2019 are analyzed, and the evaluation results are obtained: China’s comprehensive agricultural benefit kept growing, social benefit and economic benefit continued to grow, and ecological benefit began to grow rapidly in 2018 after experiencing a small decline. According to the evaluation results, the problems existing in China’s agricultural development are found, and the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward.

Evaluation Method of Synergy Degree for Comprehensive Benefits System of Hydropower Projects

The hydropower project had comprehensively benefited people from aspects of the economy, society, ecology, etc. The comprehensive benefit is a key indicator for evaluating a project’s performance. However, the existing studies only evaluated the comprehensive benefit and ignored the relationship among different benefits, which is of great significance for the sustainable development of a project. Therefore, in the framework of the complex system composed of economic, social, and ecological benefit subsystems, a synergy degree evaluation method is constructed based on the evaluation index system of the comprehensive benefits, and the compound weight is determined by using the non-linear model and the Lagrange function. Thus, the changing rules of the order degree and the synergy degree for the subsystems in different years can be obtained. The proposed method is applied to a gate dam (named SG) to appraise the relationship among benefits. The results show that the economic, social, and ecological benefits of the SG dam from 2011 to 2018 are gradually to be a better state, but the synergy degrees of the complex system belong to “bottom synergy” and “moderate synergy” level, which indicates that there is no close cooperation among the three benefit subsystems.

Evaluation of the Ecological Benefits of Recycling Multiple Metals from Lithium Battery Saggars Based on Emergy Analysis

With the rapid development of China’s new energy industry, the use of lithium-ion batteries has increased sharply, and the demand for battery cathode metals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese has also increased rapidly. Scrapped ceramic saggars that are used to produce the cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries contain large amounts of nickel, cobalt, and manganese compounds; thus, recycling these saggars has high economic value and ecological significance. In this paper, the emergy method is used to analyze the ecological benefits of the typical Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling process in China. This paper constructs an ecoefficiency evaluation index for industrial systems based on emergy analysis to analyze the recycling of nickel and cobalt saggars. The ecological benefits are analyzed, and the following conclusions are drawn. (1) The Ni–Co-containing saggar recycling production line has good economic and ecological benefits. (2) The process has room for improvement in the energy use efficiency and clean energy use of the crystallization process and the efficiency of chemical use in the cascade separation and purification process. This study also establishes a set of emergy analysis methods and indicator system for the evaluation of the ecological benefit of the recycling industry, which can provide a reference for the evaluation of the eco-economic benefit of similar recycling industry processes.

Adhesives for the Installation of Cast Basalt Elements on Metal and Comparison of Properties when Using Different Types of Fillers

The polymeric adhesives for the installation of basalt elements on a metal base are designed primarily for environments with increased chemical and mechanical stress. They are composed of polymer resins (epoxy, polyurethane) as binders, as well as organic additives and mineral admixtures that mainly fulfill the function of filler. In all sectors of today's construction industry, maximum efficiency in the production of materials is required for sustainability purposes, which, however, must never be at the expense of the quality or the required performance. Due to these requirements, great emphasis is placed on the maximum use of secondary raw materials. Talc is used as the primary filler for polymer adhesives. Sawdust, tire rubber, and fly ash are used as secondary raw materials. The use of these in building supplies can positively affect some physical and mechanical properties of polymeric adhesives. Also, the use of secondary raw materials has the above-mentioned ecological benefit. Basic properties, such as bulk density and adhesion to both metallic and basalt elements, were monitored. The details of the cohesion of the adhesive with the bonded material, as well as the distribution of secondary raw materials in the polymer matrix, were assessed microscopically.