The Singapore Green Plan 2030 was released by the Singapore government to set targets for sustainability by 2030. The adoption of novel technologies, processes and substances creates new jobs, and such developments bring about new challenges and risks for both employers and workers. Beyond emerging hazards, traditional hazards still remain, but they may take on new forms through new work processes. This review aims to provide an overview of the potential occupational health issues we may encounter or anticipate in these key sectors: solar energy, waste management and recycling, green buildings, electric vehicles and battery recycling, and sustainable fuels. While existing Occupational Safety and Health regulations in Singapore serve as a foundation, there may be gaps in addressing the specific hazards and risks associated with green jobs. In this review, we propose and outline possible approaches to the protection of worker safety and health.
Singapore ; Humans ; Occupational Health ; Recycling ; Waste Management ; Solar Energy ; Occupational Exposure

BACKGROUND: It is inaccurate to reflect the level of dust exposure through working years. Furthermore, identifying a predictive indicator for lung function decline is significant for coal miners. The study aimed to explored whether club cell secretory protein (CC16) levels can reflect early lung function changes. METHODS: The cumulative respiratory dust exposure (CDE) levels of 1,461 coal miners were retrospectively assessed by constructed a job-exposure matrix to replace working years. Important factors affecting lung function and CC16 were selected by establishing random forest models. Subsequently, the potential of CC16 to reflect lung injury was explored from multiple perspectives. First, restricted cubic spline (RCS) models were used to compare the trends of changes in lung function indicators and plasma CC16 levels after dust exposure. Then mediating analysis was performed to investigate the role of CC16 in the association between dust exposure and lung function decline. Finally, the association between baseline CC16 levels and follow-up lung function was explored. RESULTS: The median CDE were 35.13 mg/m³-years. RCS models revealed a rapid decline in forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV₁), and their percentages of predicted values when CDE exceeded 25 mg/m³-years. The dust exposure level (<5 mg/m³-years) causing significant changes in CC16 was much lower than the level (25 mg/m³-years) that caused changes in lung function indicators. CC16 mediated 11.1% to 26.0% of dust-related lung function decline. Additionally, workers with low baseline CC16 levels experienced greater reductions in lung function in the future. CONCLUSIONS CC16 levels are more sensitive than lung indicators in reflecting early lung function injury and plays mediating role in lung function decline induced by dust exposure. Low baseline CC16 levels predict poor future lung function.
Uteroglobin/blood* ; Humans ; Dust/analysis* ; Occupational Exposure/analysis* ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Adult ; Retrospective Studies ; Lung Injury/chemically induced* ; Coal Mining ; Biomarkers/blood* ; China/epidemiology* ; Air Pollutants, Occupational ; Female

In China, the crude oil supply is highly dependent on overseas countries, and thus strengthening crude oil self-sufficiency has become an important issue of the national energy security. Tertiary oil recovery, especially polymer flooding, has been widely applied in large oil fields in China, which can increase the recovery rate by 15%-20% compared with water flooding. However, the widely used oil flooding polymers show poor thermal stability and salinity tolerance, complicated synthesis ways of monomers, and environmental unfriendliness. Moreover, the polymer flooding induces problems including pore plugging, heterogeneity intensification, high dispersion of remaining oil resources, pressure rise in injection wells, and low efficiency circulation of injection medium, which restrict the subsequent recovery of old oil fields. Here, we systematically review the developing and current situations of polymer flooding, introduce the innovative biomanufacturing of oil flooding polymers and their monomers or precursors as well as low-cost bio-based chemical raw materials for multiple compound flooding. The comprehensive study of the relationships between microbial fermentation metabolites and polymer flooding will reveal the green and low-carbon paths for polymer flooding. Such study will enable the application of enzymes produced by microorganisms in polymer production and polymer plugging removal after polymer flooding as well as the application of microbial metabolites such as biosurfactants, organic acids, alcohols, biogas, and amino acids in enhancing oil recovery. This review suggests that incorporating biomanufacturing into polymer flooding will ensure the high productivity and stability for crude oil production in China.
Polymers/metabolism* ; China ; Petroleum ; Oil and Gas Fields

With the rapid development of synthetic biology, genetic engineering, and molecular manipulation methods in recent years, microalgae, as representatives of microbial cell factories, have been widely used as hosts in the production of high-value bioproducts, such as oils, pigments, proteins, and biofuels, demonstrating promising prospects of application in biochemical energy, food and drugs, and environmental protection. Despite these advancements, the low production efficiency of microalgae limits their industrial application. In addition to strain improvement and culture condition optimization, the regulation by exogenous chemical additives serves as a promising optimization strategy. This method relies on straightforward phenotypic screening and circumvents the necessity for intricate understanding of molecular targets in the metabolic and catabolic pathways involved in the synthesis of bioproducts. It enables rapid yield increasing of high-value bioproducts from microalgae and obtaining the required phenotypes. Although studies have reported the use of alternatives means such as exogenous additives to improve the growth of microalgae and the yield of high-value bioproducts, the classification and summarization of the types, applications, targeted strains, and molecular mechanisms of these additives are not comprehensive. Here, we review the studies using chemical inducers or enhancers to improve cell growth and high-value bioproduct accumulation in microalgae in recent years. This paper focuses on the types of exogenous additives, the effects of exogenous additives and their combinations on microalgae growth and high-value bioproduct accumulation, and the molecular mechanisms of related effects. We aim to provide information for researchers to use methods of synthetic biology to develop suitable cell chassis and harness microalgae for industrial production.
Microalgae/drug effects* ; Biofuels

Petroleum hydrocarbon pollution has become one of the global environmental problems, posing a serious threat to the environment and human health. Microbial remediation plays an important role in the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated environment. Nevertheless, the stress factors present in the environment polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons limit the effectiveness of microbial remediation. This paper reviews the common stress factors in petroleum hydrocarbon-polluted environment and the response mechanisms of microorganisms to these factors. Furthermore, we introduce the methods to improve microbial tolerance, such as irrational modification, rational modification based on systems biology tools or tolerance mechanisms, and the construction of microbial consortia. The application of these methods is expected to improve the viability and remediation efficiency of microorganisms in petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated environment and provide new perspectives and technical support for environmental remediation.
Biodegradation, Environmental ; Petroleum/metabolism* ; Hydrocarbons/isolation & purification* ; Bacteria/genetics* ; Environmental Pollutants/isolation & purification* ; Petroleum Pollution

To explore the differences in biological gas production in the waterlogged zone of a coal seam fire-affected area, in this study the in-situ gas production experiment was conducted with the mine water from aquitard layers in coal seam fire zones in Xinjiang. The results showed that the biogas production first increased and then decreased with the increase in distance, and the highest gas production reached 216.55 mL. The changes in key metabolic pathways during the anaerobic fermentation of coal were analyzed, which showed that as the distance from the aquitard layer in the coal seam fire zone increased, the methanogenesis pathways gradually shifted from acetic acid decarboxylation and carbon dioxide reduction to acetic acid decarboxylation and methylamine methanogenesis. The significant variability in the in-situ mine water reservoir conditions contributed to the differences. In addition, the reservoir pressure and temperature increased as the distance from the fire zone became longer, and the salinity of the farthest mine water in the reverse fault was the highest due to the lack of groundwater supply. Pearson correlation analysis revealed significant correlations of microbial communities with key functional genes and the types and concentrations of ions. The ions significantly influencing microbial enzymatic metabolic activities included Al³⁺, Fe²⁺, Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, Cu²⁺, Zn²⁺, Mg²⁺, PO₄^3-, and Mo⁶⁺. The differences in metabolic pathways were attributed to the integrated effects of a co-occurring environment with multiple ions. The gas production simulation experiments and metagenomic analyses provide data support for the practical application of in-situ biogas experiments, laying a foundation for engineering applications.
Biofuels ; Coal ; Methane/biosynthesis* ; Fires ; Groundwater ; Coal Mining ; Fermentation ; China ; Anaerobiosis

Humans ; Vascular Stiffness ; Coal Mining ; Occupational Diseases/epidemiology* ; Risk Factors ; Coal ; Miners

The demographic characteristics, drug use, clinical symptoms and other data of the patients treated with Huoxiang Zhengqi Oral Liquid were collected. The latent class analysis(LCA) was performed to reveal the distribution of primary symptoms, and then the doubly robust estimation was employed to analyze the efficacy of different doses of Huoxiang Zhengqi Oral Liquid in different populations. A total of 11 273 patients were enrolled in this study, including 4 347 males and 6 926 females. A total of 15 primary symptoms were included, with the top 3 being dizziness(53.9%), head heaviness(39.6%), and nausea(39.4%). According to the LCA, the population was divided into 3 groups of spleen deficiency and dampness exuberance(5 604 cases, 49.71%), upward harassing of wind-phlegm(4 955 cases, 43.96%), and spleen Qi deficiency(714 cases, 6.33%). Double robust estimation showed that the time to recovery of the patients with spleen Qi deficiency had no significant difference regarding the daily dose. Compared with the daily dose of 20 mL, the daily doses of 40, and 60 mL shortened the time to recovery by 16.67(95%CI[5.23, 28.12]) and 15.94 h(95%C1[7.45, 24.43]) in the patients with upward harassingof wind-phlegm, the daily doses of 30, 40, and 60 mL shortened the time to recovery by 4.42(95%CI[1.06, 7.77]), 13.07(95%CI[1.61, 24.54]), 13.92 h(95%CI[5.14, 22.70]) in the patients with spleen deficiency and dampness exuberance, respectively. The patients with cold due to wind-cold and dampness stagnation had more primary syndromes, and the disease locations were mainly in the head, stomach, and spleen. In clinical practice, the daily dose of Huoxiang Zhengqi Oral Liquid can be increased according to the symptoms of patients, which can shorten the time to recovery.
Humans ; Male ; Female ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/therapeutic use* ; Middle Aged ; Adult ; Young Adult ; Aged ; Adolescent ; Administration, Oral ; Wind ; Child ; Spleen/drug effects* ; Cold Temperature ; Aged, 80 and over

Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes capable of oxygenic photosynthesis, which have potential to serve as "autotrophic cell factories". However, the synthesis of biofuels and chemicals using cyanobacteria as chassis are suffered from poor stress tolerance and low yield, resulting in low economic feasibility for industrial production. Thus, it's urgent to construct new cyanobacterial chassis by means of synthetic biology. In recent years, adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) has made great achievements in chassis engineering, including optimizing growth rate, increasing tolerance, enhancing substrate utilization and increasing product yield. ALE has also made some progress in improving the tolerance of cyanobacteria to high light intensity, heavy metal ions, high concentrations of salt and organic solvents. However, the engineering efficiency of ALE strategy in cyanobacteria is generally low, and the molecular mechanisms underpinning the tolerance to various stresses have not been fully elucidated. To this end, this review summarizes the ALE-associated technical strategies and their applications in cyanobacteria chassis engineering, following by discussing how to construct larger ALE mutation library, increase mutation frequency of strains and shorten evolution time. Moreover, exploration of the construction principles and strategies for constructing multi-stress tolerant cyanobacteria, and efficient analysis the mutant libraries of evolved strains as well as construction of strains with high yield and strong robustness are discussed, with the aim to facilitate the engineering of cyanobacteria chassis and the application of engineered cyanobacteria in the future.
Technology ; Photosynthesis/genetics* ; Cyanobacteria/genetics* ; Light ; Biofuels

Plastics are widely used in human daily life, which bring great convenience. Nevertheless, the disposal of a large amount of plastic wastes also brings great pressure to the environment. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a polymer thermoplastic material produced from petroleum. It has become one of the most commonly used plastics in the world due to its durability, high transparency, light weight and other characteristics. PET can exist in nature for a long time due to its complex structure and the difficulty in degradation, which causes serious pollution to the global ecological environment, and threatens human health. The degradation of PET wastes has since become one of the global challenges. Compared with physical and chemical methods, biodegradation is the greenest way for treating PET wastes. This review summarizes the recent advances on PET biodegradation including microbial and enzymatic degradation of PET, biodegradation pathway, biodegradation mechanisms, and molecular modification of PET-degrading enzymes. In addition, the prospect for achieveing efficient degradation of PET, searching and improving microorganisms or enzymes that can degrade PET of high crystallinity are presented, with the aimto facilitate the development, application and molecular modification of PET biodegradation microorganisms or enzymes.
Humans ; Polyethylene Terephthalates/metabolism* ; Polymers ; Biodegradation, Environmental ; Petroleum