In general, exploitation of rock materials, such as limestone or granite exploitation, can cause serious damage to the environment near a mine area. With economic development and the ever-increasing demand for ore resources, mining activities have induced very serious environmental issues in China. Therefore, environmental restoration work around mines in China is urgently required. This study explores the Chuankou open-pit limestone quarry in Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, Northwest China, as the engineering case. The environmental issues caused by over 40 years of limestone exploitation, including land degradation, land occupation, dust pollution and potential geological disasters, were investigated. Combining the characteristics of this quarry with a summary of previous studies on environmental restoration work, this paper proposes a novel and systematic method that was comprehensively carried out through engineering and revegetation measures. The engineering measure, that is, the construction of an artificial slope by using local abandoned construction materials, solved the environmental problems in this quarry and provided site conditions favourable for revegetation. The revegetation measure restored the local ecosystem. This method provides both a new idea for the sustainable development of a mining area and a useful reference for analogous engineering cases.
Backsheet is the key element to ensure the power generation of PV modules during their whole life cycle. To continually decrease the LCOE, backsheets of new structures are gradually applied. Currently, the evaluation of module product performance is mainly on the module scale, while the assessment of each single material is rare. This paper is aimed at the evaluation of each single backsheet’s reliability when applied in different climatic environments for the widely used new backsheet structures (BS1-BS5). Through comparative research, the backsheet based on thicker PET was found to have a better mechanical performance and BS3 exhibited good resistance performance in hot and humid condition, which could be attributed to the low water vapor transmission rate of the PO film.
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