Green Carbon co-organizes 17th International Clostridium Conference

http://qibebt.cas.cn/news/zyxw/202409/t20240922_7378447.html

From September 19th to 22nd, the 17th International Clostridium Conference was held in Qingdao, hosted by the International Clostridium Conference Organizing Committee, supported by the Bioenergy Research Laboratory of Qingdao Institute of Energy, the Key Laboratory of Solar Photovoltaic Conversion and Utilization, Shandong Energy Research Institute, and Qingdao New Energy Shandong Provincial Laboratory, and co-organized by the One Carbon Biotechnology Research Center and Green Carbon Editorial Department.

Since 1990, the International Clostridium Conference has been held every two years, and this Clostridium Conference is the second time to be held in China. On the afternoon of the 19th, the executive chairman of the conference, Researcher Li Fuli, director of the One Carbon Biotechnology Research Center, announced the opening of the conference. Director Lv Xuefeng delivered a speech on behalf of the Qingdao Institute of Energy and introduced the construction and development of the institute to the delegates.

This conference invited about 150 scholars and guests from domestic and foreign academic and business circles to attend the conference, including more than 50 foreign experts from Germany, the United States, France, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Italy and other countries. The conference was divided into four parts according to the topic direction: physiology and systems biology, genetics and synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and raw material utilization, industry and new applications. More than 40 oral speakers shared the latest research results with the participants, discussed future research directions, and exchanged problems and challenges encountered in Clostridium research and industrialization engineering.

As a valuable platform for scientific exchange and cooperation, this conference will further promote the development of Clostridium research. At the same time, the successful holding of this conference is of great significance to enhancing the influence of the institute in the field of Clostridium research. (Text/Photo by Ma Xiaoqing)

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https://www.nature.com/nature-index/supplements/nature-index-2025-science-cities/tables/overall

https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1118/c90000-20391615.html

The newly released “Nature Index 2025 Science Cities” supplement shows that the number of Chinese cities in the global top ten rose from five in 2023 to six in 2024, marking the first time China holds a majority in the rankings.

The supplement draws on the Nature Index database, which tracks research articles published from 2015 to 2024. Its analysis uses “Share”, a fractional count reflecting institutional contribution to publications, as the primary metric, with time-series data adjusted to 2024 levels. Each city’s Share is calculated by summing the contributions of all affiliated institutions located within that city.

According to the Nature Index, the world’s leading science cities overall are: Beijing, Shanghai, New York metropolitan area (U.S.), Boston metropolitan area (U.S.), Nanjing (China), Guangzhou (China), San Francisco Bay Area (U.S.), Wuhan (China), Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area (U.S.), and Hangzhou (China).

Further analysis shows that Chinese cities hold a strong advantage in chemistry, physical sciences, and earth and environmental sciences, leading the global rankings in all three fields. Notably, Chinese cities claimed all of the top ten positions in chemistry for the first time. In the other two subject areas, they secured six of the top ten spots, with Beijing ranking first worldwide across all three domains.

European cities in the ranking start at 19 (London), followed by Zurich (28), Cambridge (29), Munich (30) and Berlin (32), following Qingdao at position 31.

Green Carbon is a Quarterly Scientific Open Access Journal published by KeAi and Elsevier https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/green-carbon

The editorial office is located at the CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Environmental Technology, Qingdao, China. The international advisory board has 55 members, including 23 from Europe.

Since September 2093, it has published 108 articles through 9 issues.

Special issue topics included

  • Green biomanufacturing
  • Green chemical catalysis
  • Green photoelectric catalysis
  • C1 conversion
  • Green carbon biomanufacturing

Green Carbon is indexed by CAS, SCOPUS (immediate citescore: 14,9), DOAJ, and under full editorial evaluation for inclusion in the ESCI index.

Until now and probably throughout 2026, Green Carbon operates an APC policy free-of-charge

 Beyond a journal, Green Carbon, through its host institute CAS QIBEBT, has developed into an international academic exchange platform, which has hosted recent conferences on Green Carbon, Phototrophic Prokaryotes, Clostridia and more, see http://english.qibebt.cas.cn

For further information, consult with the Green Carbon website https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/green-carbon or with the Green Carbon Offices in Germany through https://window-to-china.de/green_carbon/

https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1031/c90000-20384954.html

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea0774

A group at Peking University has developed technology that almost completely eliminates carbon dioxide by-products during Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS), offering a new route to green syngas conversion and low-carbon chemical manufacturing. FTS converts the syngas of carbon dioxide and hydrogen into liquid fuels or high-value chemicals such as olefins. It serves as the pivotal bridge for turning coal, natural gas, biomass and other carbon resources into fuels and value-added chemicals.

The researchers have used a sodium-modified FeCx@Fe3O4 core-shell catalyst coupling water-gas shift (WGS) with syngas-to-olefins (STO) to convert water into hydrogen in situ. HAE reaches about 66 to 83%, exceeding that of methanol-to-olefins (MTO, 50% upper limit). The approximately 95% carbon monoxide conversion and >75% olefin selectivity were simultaneously obtained. The coupling effect was validated by isotope tracing with deuterium oxide and blocking the WGS pathway, and the contribution of WGS was quantitatively evaluated. These results, using lower hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratios, implied that reducing steam consumption in the WGS reaction and reducing the overall output of carbon dioxide and wastewater enabled a sustainable STO process for potential industrialization.

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