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The main objective of the present investigation is to develop a novel efficient stochastic model for availability optimization of reverse osmosis machine system (ROMS) for water purification under the concepts of exponentially distributed decision variables and various redundancy strategies at the component level.

ROMS is a complex framework configured in a series structure using six subsystems. Initially, a state transition diagram is developed and Chapman–Kolmogorov differential-difference equations are derived using Markov birth death process. The steady-state availability of the ROMS is derived for a particular case. The impact of variation in failure and repair rates measured on availability. Furthermore, an effort is made to predict the optimal availability of the ROMS system using the metaheuristic algorithms, namely, dragonfly algorithm (DA), grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA) and whale optimization algorithm (WOA).

It is observed that the ROMS system predicts optimal availability of 0.999926 after five iterations with a population size of 300 by the WOA. The findings of this study are significant for reliability engineers as well as for maintenance engineers to ensure the availability of ROMS for water purification.

In the present investigation, a novel stochastic model is developed for ROMS, and metaheuristics algorithms are applied to predict the optimal availability.

In response to water scarcity in Sri Lanka, the government is implementing strategies such as rainwater harvesting, efficient irrigation, wastewater treatment and desalination. Initial efforts include the establishment of a desalination plant in Jaffna, with additional plans for the dry zones (DZ). The study aims to comprehensively identify the barriers to establishing desalination plants in the DZ and provide recommendations to mitigate these barriers. Additionally, this research provides valuable insights aimed at minimizing barriers to the construction of future desalination plants within Sri Lanka.

The study used qualitative methods, using an expert survey to identify current and future barriers, along with strategies for overcoming them. The collected data were analysed using the template analysis technique.

Regarding desalination plant establishment, various barriers such as high capital costs, high energy expenses, brine discharge, pollution, emissions, technical challenges, health concerns and waste disposal have been identified. However, specific strategies exist to address and mitigate each of these obstacles.

The study offers recommendations to environmental experts and government on expediting the approval procedures for desalination plants in Sri Lanka’s DZ. Adapted to Sri Lanka’s specific challenges, it highlights strategies and barriers essential for upcoming desalination projects. Furthermore, it emphasizes the financial advantages such as increased production and job creation resulting from establishing desalination facilities.

Through this study, promoting sustainable practices and fostering community involvement, it aims to enhance livelihoods, accelerate economic development and improve overall well-being through reliable access to water. Additionally, the study aims to enhance understanding of the importance of desalination in alleviating water scarcity, promoting community engagement and ultimately facilitating improved living conditions, health outcomes and economic opportunities in Sri Lanka’s DZs.

This study provides crucial direction for decision-makers by highlighting the main barriers to the establishment of desalination plants in Sri Lanka and outlining practical solutions. Implementing these strategies helps meet the region’s increasing water demands, advance sustainable water management, improve the standard of living for nearby communities and promote the socioeconomic development of desalination plants in Sri Lanka’s DZ.

This paper aims to examine the role of technological Innovation in ensuring resource sustainability in the water, energy and food (WEF) nexus, as there exists a shortage of statistical research on the extent of the influence of technological Innovation on the WEF nexus.

The study used a quantitative research method, using a well-structured questionnaire to collect data from management staff in the WEF departments in South Africa. The collected data were analyzed by using mean score ranking, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings show that the technological process of technological innovation is significant for resource sustainability. The result also showed that technological innovations directly and statistically significantly affect WEF nexus. The EFA resulted in three components of WEF nexus product innovation, WEF nexus process innovation and WEF nexus novel innovations. Furthermore, the CFA and SEM analysis reveals that six technological innovation indicators influence the sustainability of the nexus: smart water metering technology, smart metering technology, food quality monitoring technology, agricultural technology solutions, new technological design and eco-friendly WEF products.

The sustainability of these three inevitable resources for man’s survival is dependent on technological innovations, and this study has shown the major categories of innovations needed, thus establishing a pathway for engineering design.

Businesses are increasingly vulnerable and exposed to physical climate change risks, which can cascade through local, national and international supply chains. Currently, few methodologies can capture how physical risks impact businesses via the supply chains, yet outside the business literature, methodologies such as sustainability assessments can assess cascading impacts.

Adopting a scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR), this paper reviews 27 articles that assess climate risk in supply chains.

The literature on supply chain risks of climate change using quantitative techniques is limited. Our review confirms that no research adopts sustainability assessment methods to assess climate risk at a business-level.

Alongside the need to quantify physical risks to businesses is the growing awareness that climate change impacts traverse global supply chains. We review the state of the literature on methodological approaches and identify the opportunities for researchers to use sustainability assessment methods to assess climate risk in the supply chains of an individual business.

The search for luxurious hospitality experiences increasingly coincides with the imperative to mitigate negative impacts in the pursuit of greater sustainability. This is a task often understood as being complex particularly in the context of luxury hospitality which often resonates with conspicuous consumption. This chapter uses a case study approach to analyze the complex relationship between luxury tourism and sustainability. The study focuses on the development of “luxury” from a materialistic perspective toward an experience economy and relates this to the concept of sustainability and agreements relevant to the tourism industry. The environmental impact of luxury hospitality is then discussed. The case study on properties in Costa Rica, South Africa, the Maldives, Vietnam, and French Polynesia focuses on philosophy, facilities, energy and waste consumption, food and beverage, conservational and educational activities, and alignment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The focus is on the properties and shows limitations in that it is not applicable to the whole tourist journey and experience. All properties understand luxury as based on experiences and involvement in nature. Measures to mitigate environmental impact and foster conservational and educational activities are mainstream practices. Comparing the cases with academic literature on luxury, sustainability, ecotourism, and environmental policies underline that sustainability-driven luxury hospitality shows valuable steps toward a more sustainable product but is ultimately faced with the dilemma of taking into consideration and ultimately mitigating the impacts of the entire travel value chain.

This study aims to conduct the domain mapping of consumer behaviour research in the context of solar energy. The study can help in understanding the intellectual structure, evolution of keywords and key research producers (at the author, institutional and source level) related to the domain of solar energy consumer research.

This study uses R-studios’ bibliometrix package for analysing the bibliographical data collected from the Scopus database. Analysis has been conducted at the descriptive level (summary, author, institution and source) and analytical level (co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, thematic maps and historiography).

This study finds out the most relevant authors, institutions and sources using criteria such as production, citations and H-index. Relevant research clusters have been identified using the clustering of authors, co-citations and keywords. Thematic mapping has identified the basic and motor themes. Historical citation analysis shows the direct linkage of previous studies. Overall, this study reports the most relevant bibliometric indicators in the domain of solar energy consumer research.

Identified patterns can help policymakers, business experts, social marketers and energy conservation organisations to study consumer behaviour.

Thiis bibliometric study can effectively assess sustainable development goals and suggest improved action plans.

This study examined bibliometric analysis in solar energy products (SEPs), recognised varied domains of research work on consumers’ intention to purchase solar household products and mapped them into six groups. This study provides an overview of 40 years of research on consumer behaviour towards SEPs and discusses its findings to identify the research gap.

This study aims to provide a new method for precisely sizing photovoltaic (PV) arrays for standalone, direct pumping PV Water Pumping (PVWP) systems for irrigation purposes.

The method uses historical weather data and considers daily variability in regional temperatures and rainfall, crop evapotranspiration rates and seasonality effects, all within a nonparametric bootstrapping approach to synthetically generate daily rainfall and crop irrigation needs. These needs define the required daily supply of pumped water to achieve a user-specified level of reliability, which provides the input to an intuitive approach for PV array sizing. An economic comparison of the costs for the PVWP versus a comparably powered diesel generator system is provided.

Pumping 22.8646 m³/day of water would meet the pasture crop irrigation needs on a one-acre (4046.78 m²) tract of land in South Florida, with 99.9% reliability. Given the specified assumptions, an 8.4834 m² PV array, having a peak power of 1.1877 (kW), could provide the 1.2347 (kWh/day) of hydraulic energy needed to supply this volume over a total head of 20 meters. The PVWP system is the low-cost option when diesel prices are above $0.90/liter and total installed PV array costs are fixed at $2.00/Watt peak power or total installed PV array costs are below $1.50/Watt peak power and diesel prices are fixed at $0.65/liter.

Because the approach is not dependent on the shapes of the sampling distributions for regional climate factors and can be adapted to consider different types of crops, it is highly portable and applicable for precisely determining array sizes for standalone, direct pumping PVWP systems for irrigating diverse crop types in diverse regions.

Despite its great practical and theoretical significance, research on how and to what extent sustainable manufacturing capabilities (SMCs) provide competitive advantage to firms remains scarce. Towards bridging the gap, this paper conducts an enquiry into the competitive value of SMCs.

A theoretical framework on the competitive value of four SMCs, namely, pollution control (PC), pollution prevention (PP), product stewardship (PS) and clean technology (CT) is developed through synthesis of literature. More specifically, competitive value is characterised in terms of enabling key resources and market positioning opportunities. A case study, using a deductive qualitative approach is conducted to test the framework by analysing reported sustainable manufacturing practices (SMPs) of three multinational firms. Observed compliances and deviations to the framework are analysed and accordingly few propositions are framed.

The empirical findings largely support the conceptualisation of competitive value for PC, PP, PS and CT provided in the theoretical framework. However, a few deviations were observed for PC, PP and PS. For instance, some PC-based actions, such as co-processing and implementation of zero liquid discharge technology show characteristics of resource conservation and lead to cost benefits. Similarly, there were instances when PP demonstrated the use of non-tacit (imitable) resources and PS was employed to seek compliance to environmental regulations.

The results based on limited number of case firms may not be generalisable to other sectors and contexts.

The study provides guidance to the manufacturing managers about the competitive value of SMPs.

This is a novel study that empirically investigates the competitive value of SMCs by understanding the associated sustainability impetus, enabling key resources and market positioning opportunities.

This study aims to optimize the preparation conditions and modify the nanofiltration (NF) membranes to prepare high-performance polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone composite nanofiltration (PSF/SPSF-NF) membranes through interfacial polymerization.

Investigating the impacts of anhydrous piperazine (PIP) concentration, trimesoyl chloride (TMC) concentration and basement membrane type on NF membrane performance, the optimal membrane was prepared. In addition, nano-SiO₂ was added to the active separation layer to modify the NF membranes.

The comprehensive performance of PSF/SPSF-NF membranes was optimized when the concentration of PIP was 0.75 Wt.% and the concentration of TMC was 0.15 Wt.%, at which time the water flux was 66.1 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹ and the retention rate of Na₂SO₄ was 98.1%. The comprehensive performance of polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone-SiO₂ nanofiltration (PSF/SPSF-SiO₂-NF) membranes was optimized when the blending ratio of nano-SiO₂ to PIP was 2:3, with a pure water flux of 81.9 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹ and a Na₂SO₄ retention rate of 95.9%. Compared to polysulfone nanofiltration (PSF-NF) membranes and PSF/SPSF-NF membranes, NF membranes with nano-SiO₂ increased the flux recovery rate by 22.9% and 8.7%.

PSF/SPSF-SiO2-NF membrane exhibits excellent antifouling properties.

There is currently no literature available on the preparation of NF membranes using polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone (PSF/SPFS) as a substrate. This provides a method for modifying NF membranes, starting with the modification of the basement membrane and then modifying the active separation layer.