Digital Twins have emerged as an outstanding opportunity for precision farming, digitally replicating in real-time the functionalities of objects and plants. A virtual replica of the crop, including key agronomic development aspects such as irrigation, optimal fertilization strategies, and pest management, can support decision-making and a step change in farm management, increasing overall sustainability and direct water, fertilizer, and pesticide savings. In this review, Digital Twin technology is critically reviewed and framed in the context of recent advances in precision agriculture and Agriculture 4.0. The review is organized for each step of agricultural lifecycle, edaphic, phytotechnologic, postharvest, and farm infrastructure, with supporting case studies demonstrating direct benefits for agriculture production and supply chain considering both benefits and limitations of such an approach. Challenges and limitations are disclosed regarding the complexity of managing such an amount of data and a multitude of (often) simultaneous operations and supports.

This critical review provides an overview of the sustainability outcomes associated with flow chemistry, as a new concept in process chemistry, and its related technology and engineering field, microreaction technology. This study is broad in scope and covers cost and life cycle assessment methodologies applied to flow chemistry. The present review differs from past studies by providing a mechanistic viewpoint, i.e., starting by listing key levers (e.g. mass transfer), and then unravelling their impact on costs and life cycle, using reported flow chemistry studies as examples to underline the sustainability capability. This way, this review transitions from informing on how flow chemistry and microreactors can improve fundamental principles in chemical engineering and chemistry to their translation to improved sustainability. Gaps and opportunities in the reporting of microreactor/flow chemistry are identified. To put the reported achievements into perspective, a life cycle assessment (LCA) study is conducted that reports on the effects of the key levers, as identified in this study, for a flow chemistry reaction at the pilot scale, conducted at an industrial site (technology readiness level 4). This way, this study provides a quantitative forecast of what principally can be achieved when maximising the key levers, in terms of the individual LCA impact categories and their total average outcome.

Analysis of the CO production cost from CO ₂ via gliding arc plasma reactors with embedded carbon beds versus low-temperature electrolysers.