To improve the hydroquinone (HQ) determination limit in wastewater and contribute to the comprehensive utilization of lignin, a zinc oxide-loaded lignin-based carbon fiber (ZCF) was prepared by a combination of electrospinning and thermal treatment processes, and was applied in electrocatalytic oxidation of HQ using cyclic voltammetry (CV). The characterization of composites was conducted by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The CV curves demonstrate that a ZCF-modified electrode can efficiently enhance the electrochemical signal and provide a fast response to HQ with a linear range from 1 × 10⁻⁶ to 5 × 10⁻³ mol/L and a determination limit of 2.5 × 10⁻⁷ M. Compared with modification materials reported in other literature, it performs excellent. In addition, the effect of the scan rate and the stability of modified materials were also investigated to illustrate the electrochemical behavior on HQ determination. Under optimum conditions, the ZCF-modified electrode was also used for the simultaneous determination of HQ, catechol (CC), and resorcinol (RS), which could well separate the oxidation peaks of the three isomers.

To promote the adsorption and activation of carbon dioxide in the dry reforming of methane (DRM), Ni and Al₂O₃ were coprecipitated on activated carbon fibers (ACF). Various characterization methods were adopted in order to investigate the surface characteristics of different catalysts. Chemisorption characterization results, such as H₂-temperature programmed reduction (H₂-TPR), H₂-temperature programmed desorption (H₂-TPD), and CO₂-temperature programmed desorption (CO₂-TPD) illustrated that ACF in a nickel-based catalyst could enhance the basic sites and improve the metal dispersion on a catalyst surface, which is beneficial for the adsorption and activation of feed gas. The coprecipitated coating on ACF proved by scanning electron microscope (SEM) can prevent the carbon of ACF from participating in the reaction, while retain good surface properties of carbon fibers. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns illustrated that the ACF in a nickel-based catalyst could decrease the crystallite size of the spinel NiAl₂O₄, which is beneficial for methane reforming. In addition, the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) of different catalysts revealed that the added ACF could provide abundant functional groups on the surface, which could be the intermediate product of DRM, and effectively promote the reaction. Different to the catalyst supported on single alumina, the performance evaluation and stability test proved that the catalyst added with ACF exhibited a better catalytic performance especially for CO₂ conversion. Moreover, based on the characterization results as well as some related literature, the dry reforming mechanism over optimum catalyst was derived.

With the reform of China’s urbanization increasing in popularity, the security issues posed by urban groundwater, especially groundwater in industrial areas, have attracted scholars’ attention. This research aimed to predict and quantify the migration process of contaminants in a microconfined aquifer by conducting a groundwater contamination investigation in an abandoned chemical plant in the Jiangsu Province of China. First, data such as regional hydrogeological parameters and types of contaminants were obtained via hydrogeological drilling, groundwater well monitoring, pumping tests, and laboratory permeability tests, which helped identify the most serious pollution factor: chloroform. Then, a groundwater flow model was built using the Groundwater Modeling System (GMS) and verified using the general-purpose parameter estimation (PEST) package. In addition, based on the three-dimensional multi-species model for transport (MT3DMS) in GMS, a transport model was established. The results illustrate that the plume range of chloroform diffuses with water flow, but, because of its slow diffusion rate and inability to degrade naturally, the concentration of the contaminant has remained several times higher than the safety standard for a long time. The contaminant spread vertically to the soil layer above the microconfined aquifer under pressure, resulting in direct pollution. In addition, the contaminant in the microconfined aquifer is anticipated to migrate down to the clay layer and become enriched. However, the first confined aquifer has not been seriously polluted in the past 20 years. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the parameters shows that groundwater contamination in the Yangtze delta region is greatly affected by precipitation recharge and hydraulic conductivity.