As global demand for clean energy continues to rise, hydrogen, as an ideal energy carrier, plays a crucial role in the energy transition. Traditional hydrogen production methods predominantly rely on fossil fuels, leading to environmental pollution and energy inefficiency. In contrast, plasma-assisted hydrogen production, as an emerging technology, has gained significant attention due to its high efficiency, environmental friendliness, and flexibility. Plasma technology generates high-energy electrons or ions by exciting gas molecules, which, under specific conditions, effectively decompose water vapor or hydrocarbon gases to produce hydrogen. This review systematically summarizes the basic principles, technological routes, research progress, and potential applications of plasma-assisted hydrogen production. It focuses on various plasma-based hydrogen production methods, such as water vapor decomposition, hydrocarbon cracking, arc discharge, and microwave discharge, highlighting their advantages and challenges. Additionally, it addresses key issues facing plasma-assisted hydrogen production, including energy efficiency improvement, reactor stability, and cost optimization, and discusses the future prospects of these technologies. With ongoing advancements, plasma-assisted hydrogen production is expected to become a mainstream technology for hydrogen production, contributing to global goals of zero carbon emissions and sustainable energy development.

The sulfur-iodine (SI) cycle holds great promise as an alternative large-scale process for converting water into hydrogen without CO₂ emissions. A major issue regarding the long-term stability and activity of the catalysts is their poor sulfur deactivation resistance in the HI feeding process. In this work, the effect of Ru addition for enhancing the activity and sulfur resistance of SiO₂-supported Ni catalysts in the HI decomposition reaction has been investigated. The presence of H₂SO₄ molecules in the HI results in severe sulfur deactivation of the Ru-free Ni/SiO₂ catalysts by blocking the active sites. However, Ni–Ru/SiO₂ catalysts show higher catalytic activity without sulfur-poisoning by 25% and exhibit more superior catalytic performance than the Ru-free catalyst. The addition of Ru to the Ni/SiO₂ catalyst promotes the stability and activity of the catalysts. The experimental trends in activity and sulfur tolerance are consistent with the theoretical modeling, with the catalytic activities existing in the order Ni/SiO₂ < Ni–Ru/SiO₂. The effect of Ru on the improvement in sulfur resistance over Ni-based catalysts is attributed to electronic factors, as evidenced by theory modeling analysis and detailed characterizations.

Factory-gate carbon footprints of finished wood flooring are shaped by material supply, manufacturing energy, transport, finishing, packaging and waste treatment. This study compared solid wood flooring (SWF) and solid wood flooring for underfloor heating (HWF) produced within one enterprise under a common cradle-to-gate (A1–A3) framework. Process contributions were evaluated alongside evidence provenance, allocation sensitivity, paired epistemic uncertainty and deterministic mitigation screening. Baseline GWP100 was 14.18 kg CO₂e m⁻² for SWF and 17.54 kg CO₂e m⁻² for HWF. HWF-specific carbonization-kiln electricity and heat-treatment natural gas together contributed approximately 2.91 kg CO₂e m⁻², accounting for most of the manufacturing-stage difference. Across 100,000 paired draws, the median HWF–SWF difference was 3.30 kg CO₂e m⁻² under area allocation and 2.88 kg CO₂e m⁻² under mass allocation within the registered epistemic parameter model. The central combined mitigation scenario reduced baseline GWP100 by 32.61% for SWF and 33.99% for HWF, while wood materials remained the largest residual process group. HWF-specific heat treatment was therefore the principal source of the additional manufacturing burden, while lower-carbon electricity, material efficiency and transport reduction offered further mitigation potential.

Natural gas metering is shifting from volume-based measurement to energy-based assessment as gas sources diversify, pipeline networks become more interconnected, and gas quality varies more strongly across time and space. This review examines the key technologies required for natural gas energy metering and evaluates how they support full-chain traceability from production to end use. The reviewed topics include flow measurement, gas composition analysis, calorific value determination, temperature-pressure compensation, state correction, uncertainty evaluation, intelligent data acquisition, and metrological traceability. The literature shows that individual technologies have advanced substantially. Ultrasonic flowmeters, rapid gas-quality sensing methods, dynamic calorific value allocation models, high-accuracy equations of state, and digital metering platforms have improved the technical basis of energy metering. However, these advances remain more mature at the level of individual links than at the level of the complete metering chain. Under multi-source supply, gas-quality fluctuation, hydrogen blending, and digitalized operation, the main challenge is to maintain consistency, uncertainty control, online verification, data credibility, and auditability across different metering stages. Future development should therefore focus on dynamic calorific value allocation, robust state correction under variable gas quality, full-chain uncertainty propagation, online verification, and secure data management for traceable natural gas energy metering.