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This study explored the composition and energy potential of university solid waste (USW) in China. Five combustible components, namely hard plastics (HP), paper (PP), soft plastics (SP), biomass (BM), and rubber (RB), were screened with the compositions 51%, 29%, 9%, 4%, and 3%, respectively. Each USW sample was gasified using a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) at the heating rates of 5, 10, and 15 ℃/min and a final process temperature of 900 ℃. Thermal weight loss (TG) curves exposed the degradation in the order HP > SP > RB > BM > PP. Derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) peaks revealed that HP, PP, BM, and SP were degraded in three temperature-oriented phases in the range 172-731 ℃. The RB took an additional phase in the range 584-660 ℃. Major released gases, H 2 , CH 4 , CO, and CO 2 , were detected using MS via mass-to-charge (m/z) ratios. Higher H 2 and total gas yield produced in the case of the HP dominated other materials at the lower heating rate of 5 ℃/min. Validation of data was assessed by equating experimental and calculated curves; therefore, the regression coefficient (R 2 ) ranged between 0.884 and 0.997. The kinetics of the process were estimated by applying the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) model at the conversion rates (α) of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8, which presented reasonable results. Overall, the lower heating rates supported higher thermal conversion and a high quantity of gaseous products for all the components., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

A novel composite of multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) supported V 2 O 5 quantum dots decorated Bi 2 O 3 hybrid was prepared by the simple wet-impregnation method, and the photocatalytic performance of the prepared samples was investigated against the photodegradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP). Herein, different samples of pristine, V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 and MWCNT@V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 hybrid photocatalyst were prepared and systematically characterized by various physicochemical techniques. The characterization results demonstrated that the introduction of MWCNT can change the energy band gap of V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 , and the band energies vary with a constituent of MWCNT@V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 catalyst, in which MWCNT@V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 -5 (0.05 g@0.50 g:0.50 g) has the optimal band gap energy of 2.46 eV. The photocatalytic test demonstrates that the MWCNT@V 2 O 5 /Bi 2 O 3 -5 hybrid composites exhibited enhanced photocatalytic activity in CIP degradation compared to that pure and other photocatalyst and its degradation efficiency did not decrease significantly even after five cyclic experiments. The enhanced photocatalytic activity was due to the formation of heterojunction among MWCNT, V 2 O 5 and Bi 2 O 3 , which distinctly improved the separation efficiency of the photogenerated charge carrier, thus increasing the degradation performance. This work gives a new approach to designing an efficient photocatalyst for contaminants degradation., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)