#Micro motors could soak up CO2 pollution in the oceans, study finds Machines that are smaller than the width of a human hair could one day help clean up carbon dioxide pollution in the oceans,
new research has found. Nanoengineers at the University of California, San diego, have designed enzyme-functionalized micromotors that rapidly zoom around in water,
a major greenhouse gas in the environment, said researchers. The team led by distinguished nanoengineering professor and chair Joseph Wang, published the work this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie."
"We're excited about the possibility of using these micromotors to combat ocean acidification and global warming,"said Virendra V. Singh, a postdoctoral scientist in Wang's research group and a co-first author of this study.
In their experiments, nanoengineers demonstrated that the micromotors rapidly decarbonated water solutions that were saturated with carbon dioxide.
"If the micromotors can use the environment as fuel, they will be more scalable, environmentally friendly and less expensive,"said Kaufmann n
#Wastewater treatment Captures Carbon emissions, Produces Energy A wastewater treatment process developed by engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder mitigates carbon dioxide emissions and actively captures greenhouse gases.
which was published recently in the journal Environmental science and Technology. Wastewater treatment typically produces CO2 EMISSIONS in two ways: the fossil fuels burned to power the machinery,
and the decomposition of organic material within the wastewater itself. Plus, existing wastewater treatment technologies consume high amounts of energy.
as the EPA Clean Power Plan requires power plants to comply with reduced CO2 EMISSION levels. e
#Making life more resistant to stress A recent paper in Current Biology suggests that plants can be engineered against climate change, even drought.
modifying them for climate change is not something we should claim (at least at this early point in the game) to be able to do any better than the plant itself might do h
#Scientists create food powder from waste, increasing shelf life from two weeks to two years Kent Ngo, Vita Jarolimkova,
we are very much aware of the problems about food waste, said Jarolimkova. he paradox is that the world is producing a lot of food that is more than enough to feed the population,
we produce more PLA with less waste and without using metals. In addition, the production process is cheaper,
and imitate the environments in which tissue and muscle cells grow in the body. The meshes are made from a flexible polymer called POMAC
as that gradually gets absorbed by the body as harmless waste). The scaffolds could also be used for other cell types,
The Harvest phone case grabs the power your phone wastes and puts it back into the battery.
#Designer Air Purifier Converts Smog Into Jewelry As it Cleans Designer Air Purifier Converts Smog Into Jewelry As it Cleans Newsearthby Terry Turner-September 16,
20150 A Dutch artist is turning smog into jewelry using the world largest portable air purifier.
Daan Roosegaarde first got the idea for the device while visiting smog-filled Beijing. Inspiration struck when he realized that air pollution is largely CO2,
which is made up of tiny little particles of carbonnd if you put a lot of carbon under enough pressure,
Turning smog into diamonds would require too much energy but the designer, who has created also solar bike paths in The netherlands,
clean air wafting into the town square, the Smog Free Tower was cranking out the bits of carbon that would be compressed into tiny cubes.
Each of those cubes, less than one half-inch squared, is the equivalent of 1, 000 cubic meters of air cleansed of smog by the white machine.
The little black bundles, framed by stainless steel, were promised to anyone who donated#50 or more.
Smog-busting Roof Tiles Could Clean Tons of Pollution Study Says Roosegaarde wants to take the tower to some of the most polluted cities in the world,
Methane capture and storage provides a double environmental return-it removes a harmful greenhouse gas from the atmosphere that can then be used as a fuel that is cleaner than other fossil fuels.
#Desalination with nanoporous graphene membrane Less than 1 percent of Earth's water is drinkable. Removing salt and other minerals from our biggest available source of water--seawater--may help satisfy a growing global population thirsty for fresh water for drinking, farming, transportation, heating, cooling and industry.
But desalination is an energy-intensive process, which concerns those wanting to expand its application.
Now, a team of experimentalists led by the Department of energy's Oak ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated an energy-efficient desalination technology that uses a porous membrane made of strong, slim graphene--a carbon honeycomb one atom thick.
The results are published in the March 23 advance online issue of Nature Nanotechnology("Water Desalination Using Nanoporous Single-layer graphene"."
To figure out the best pore size for desalination, the researchers relied on the Center for Nanophase Materials sciences (CNMS),
They determined the optimum pore size for effective desalination was 0. 5 to 1 nanometers,
They also found the optimal density of pores for desalination was one pore for every 100 square nanometers."
which is both harmful to our environment and unsustainable as well. In our group, we're trying to help solve the energy crisis by improving the efficiency of electromagnetic energy-harvesting systems."
which an operator sends a large fleet of machines into a specific area of a tsunami-ravaged region.
#Biodiesel made easier and cleaner with waste-recycling catalyst (Nanowerk News) Researchers at Cardiff University have devised a way of increasing the yield of biodiesel by using the waste left over from its production process.
Fuel suppliers are required also to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the EU fuel mix by 6 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 2010.
which waste is dealt with, and seriously improve the quality of life by reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels and encourage efficient use of resources."
"Professor Matthew Rosseinsky, Professor of Inorganic chemistry at the University of Liverpool, who was not part of the study,
but it is also a major greenhouse gas. Conversion of CO2 to something useful could dramatically reduce its emission into the atmosphere
and help alleviate the global warming problem. With their model and their design approach they have identified a few promising copper multi-metallics with a higher energy conversion efficiency and possibly higher selectivity in carbon dioxide electro-reduction to ethylene, an extremely useful chemical in industry for making plastics.
This could reduce emissions of a principal greenhouse gas that fosters climate change, and transform it into a useful, renewable fuel.
has developed a brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells that contain very little foreign material.
an assistant professor of animal and dairy science in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental sciences. his is proof of concept that extracellular matrix can be used to ensheathe a functioning electrode without the use of any other foreign
part of a competition to see who could create an affordable desalination solution for developing countries.
Using the sun instead of fossil fuels to power a desalination plant isn't a totally new idea.
Larger solar desalination plants are being investigated seriously in areas where water is becoming a scarce resource,
The MIT/Jain team and their competitors tested their projects at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in New Mexico,
The next step is to test it in an even harsher environment, exposing it to everyday use with rural farmers in an area where USAID is active.
the business of car manufacturing is destroying the environment.""3d printing of metal radically changes that.
Even the most fuel efficient car has a large carbon footprint before ever leaving the plant. Czinger and his team's approach was to take the large plant out of the equation.
reducing its carbon footprint even further. Balzer says designing an eco-friendly speed demon supercar as their first prototype was intentional."
Developed by a team of researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt, the procedure uses a desalination technique called pervaporation to remove the salt from sea water
"It can effectively desalinate water with high concentration of salt like that of the Red sea, where desalination costs more and yields less."
There's also the issue of how to deal with the waste produced from the process.
the American Midwest was devastated by heavy and repeated flash flooding as a result of Hurricane Dean and Tropical Storm Erin dumping massive amounts of rain on several states.
"Normal cooling systems use chlorofluorocarbon chemicals that destroy the ozone layer and contribute to greenhouse gases, ours is friendly to the environment,
"explains Toledo Flores. It works with solar radiation and the cooling is achieved by means of a thermodynamic adsorption-desorption cycle lasting 24 hours.
and has extremely low carbon emissions.""This means we have demonstrated the most important step toward a hydrogen economy--producing distributed and affordable green hydrogen from local biomass resources,
and causes fossil carbon emissions. To produce distributed hydrogen at affordable costs product yield, reaction rate,
#Major advance in artificial photosynthesis poses win/win for the environment A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere
the new artificial photosynthesis system offers a win/win situation for the environment: solar-powered green chemistry using sequestered carbon dioxide."
For this study, the Berkeley team used Sporomusa ovata, an anaerobic bacterium that readily accepts electrons directly from the surrounding environment
as well as organic and inorganic pollutants.""The methodology is founded on molecularly dissociating water pollutants to recover the minerals necessary and sufficient in order for the human body to function properly nourished,
"technical staff explained. Notably, the engineers developed eight dissociating elements, and after extensive testing on different types of contaminated water, implemented a unique methodology that indicates
what and how much of each element should be combined.""During the purification process no gases, odors nor toxic elements that may damage
or alter the environment, human health or quality of life are generated, "said the Mexican firm. The corporation has a pilot plant in their offices that was used to demonstrate the purification process,
#Biochar from manure waste enhances soils Researchers at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid have obtained biochar using manure waste,
Biochar, a material obtained after thermal treatment of this waste through pyrolysis, is an organic fertilizer that applied in soils
but also represents a significant reduction of CO2 EMISSIONS compared to the direct application of manure waste on soils.
and using raw materials from the waste we generate are some of the environmental challenge that we face today.
This waste contains fertilizers, and its production has increased over the last years because of intensive farming and has been used traditionally in soils as an organic amendment.
However, its high-volume production and the generation of environmental problems (eutrophication and pollution of groundwater due to its high concentration of nutrients
Pyrolysis of manure waste can drastically reduce CO2 EMISSIONS compared to the direct application of manure waste to soils.
Fuel suppliers are required also to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the EU fuel mix by 6 per cent by 2020 in comparison to 2010.
which waste is dealt with, and seriously improve the quality of life by reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels and encourage efficient use of resources."
"Professor Matthew Rosseinsky, Professor of Inorganic chemistry at the University of Liverpool, who was not part of the study,
#Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere
the new artificial photosynthesis system offers a win/win situation for the environment: solar-powered green chemistry using sequestered carbon dioxide. ur system represents an emerging alliance between the fields of materials sciences and biology,
the Berkeley team used Sporomusa ovata, an anaerobic bacterium that readily accepts electrons directly from the surrounding environment
diseases and higher temperatures and droughts expected to accompany climate change. Cotton growers have experienced a plateau in yields since the early 1990s
and breeders in the years ahead develop cotton varieties with improved fiber qualities, higher yields and more tolerance to heat, drought and diseases anticipated due to climate change.
The details are published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Borage family flowers (Echium angustifolium) as seen in human vision (left) and honeybee vision (right.
The software has already been used by the Sensory Ecology group in a wide range of studies,
Dr Jolyon Troscianko from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter Penryn Campus said:
It is quite easy to envision applications for this technology in diverse environments from a family doctor office to field studies in limnology. n future work,
Kepler says it will still undergo a rigorous environmental impact assessment during the planning process to ensure that it poses no significant risk to marine life and to other users of the sea.
delegates to the UN climate change convention annual negotiations will gather in Paris to try to conclude an ambitious and effective agreement on preventing the global average temperature rise caused by greenhouse gas emissions exceeding 2c above its preindustrial level.
Because these power plants are the largest carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters in the U s. contributing 31%of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
August 2, 2015-Tomorrow the United states will announce regulations to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from power utilities nationwide.
Hard sciencethe high degree of difficulty and expertise required means that relatively few climate scientists have been able to base their research on accurate models of historical precipitation.
New tool for climate change modelsfor example Shen referenced a region in the middle of the Pacific ocean that sometimes glows bright red on the computer model indicating extreme dryness
Shen hopes that its ease of use will encourage climate scientists to incorporate this historical data into their own models improving our future predictions of climate change.
when evaluating areas of potential pollution from nutrients. Research scientist Natalia Kuosmanen at MTT Agrifood Research Finland says defining sustainability quantitatively is challenging due to variety of meanings attached to this commonly used concept.
The static approach ignores the accumulation of nutrients in the environment and overlooks the dynamic nature of the nutrient cycles Kuosmanen says.
and the EU-level agri-environmental policies Kuosmanen argues. From theory to practicekuosmanen began her academic career in Kiev Polytechnic University Ukraine
and graduated in environmental sciences in Wageningen University The netherlands. She is ready to take her results from theory to practice.
Our dynamic approach would provide better estimations of the nutrient leaching from agriculture to environment than the conventional method of OECD. Story Source:
Within the framework of another partial project a team of KIT scientists headed by Stephan Fuchs expert for aquatic environmental engineering worked in the area of sewage and waste treatment.
There the organic wastes are converted into biogas and fertilizer within a period of one month. Via a pipeline system the gas is passed directly on to the gas stoves of the neighboring houses.
It was not easy to explain that waste or even human feces can be recycled. The KIT scientists also conceived seminars for the operators of the plants and information material and instructions for the population.
which is the natural environment for lipid membranes. Previously, other research teams have focused on writing with lipids in air
and to lower environmental impact since this fertilizing system represents an alternative to the mineral fertilizers used so far.
and sequester carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas. The project is part of the Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge an effort to develop a next-generation toilet that can be used to disinfect liquid and solid waste
while generating useful end products both in developing and developed nations said Linden. Since the 2012 grant Linden and his CU-Boulder team have received an additional $1 million from the Gates Foundation for the project
and solar energy work environmental engineers for waste treatment and stabilization mechanical engineers to build actuators and moving parts and electrical engineers to design control systems Linden said.
and effectively carbonize solid waste. While the current toilet has been created to serve four to six people a day a larger facility that could serve several households simultaneously is under design with the target of meeting a cost level of five cents a day per user set by the Gates Foundation.
greater compared to the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. For these reasons, methane and nitrous oxide detection is crucial to environmental considerations."
the Rice team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA's DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.
"Tittel said smaller QEPAS device will be added this year to the mobile monitoring van currently carrying out a Rice university of Houston survey of pollutants in the city.
#Safe drinking water Via Solar power Desalination Natasha Wright, an MIT Phd student in mechanical engineering, has designed a solar powered system that makes water safe to drink for rural, off-grid Indian villages.
Wright began designing an electrodialysis desalination system, which uses a difference in electric potential to pull salt out of water.
This type of desalination system has been around since the 1950s, but is used typically only municipally, to justify its costs.
While other companies are already installing desalination systems across India, their designs are intended to be powered grid.
She designed a village-scale desalination system that runs on solar power. Since her system is powered by the sun,
But some ranchers find that even their livestock won tolerate the saltiness of this water. t useful to install a small-scale desalination system where people are
even better, that can extract energy from the environment to recharge. Last week, at the Symposia on VLSI Technology And circuits, MIT researchers presented a new power converter chip that can harvest more than 80 percent of the energy trickling into it,
and trees when under stress and detectors to identify concentrations in air samples could be used to monitor our changing ecology.
#Nanoparticles and UV LIGHT Clean up Environmental Pollutants A new study from MIT shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants,
Many human-made pollutants in the environment resist degradation through natural processes, and disrupt hormonal and other systems in mammals and other animals.
Brandl says. hen we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove toxic chemicals, pollutants,
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
and now nrichedby the pollutants they form larger aggregates that can then be removed through filtration, sedimentation,
and molecules. he interactions we exploit to remove the pollutants are nonspecific, Brandl says. e can remove hormones, BPA,
and we can do this in one step. nd the nanoparticleshigh surface-area-to-volume ratio means that only a small amount is needed to remove a relatively large quantity of pollutants.
thus offer potential for the cost-effective cleanup of contaminated water and soil on a wider scale. rom the applied perspective,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
anoparticles with photoinduced precipitation for the extraction of pollutants from water and soil, Nature Communications 6, Article number:
"When one applies these chemicals in a confined environment like a greenhouse, one likelihood of intoxication increases notably,
what they are doing could be good for the environment, but both companies are interested also in creating a cost-competitive product that is a better economic alternative than the petroleum-based isoprene,
is piloting an environmental monitoring system that helps agribusiness concerns be smarter about how much water they use.
in the environment for them to start biodegrading. Do you eat mushrooms? I do. And Gavin does not t
which were damaged heavily by the 2011 tsunami, Memeburn reported yesterday. That includes the#town of#Namie-machi,
and#HEART Tokushima have been working in partnership with#Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support to save over 700 animals the Great East Japan Earthquake.
What the NRC really knew about Fukushima Fukushima ocean radiation could pose sleeper threat Nuclear meltdowns nearly made northern Japan uninhabitable do need we to worry about radiation in our milk?
which is designed for houses that have multiple rooms in need of climate control. Remote sensors help it monitor temperature in multiple rooms at the same time,
and making sure the genes are stable says Dean Price a professor of medicine biology and environment at Australian National University.
which account for far more carbon emissions. Even so it has long been considered a relatively lousy way to store energy because of its low efficiency about 65 percent of the energy in the original electricity is lost.
This kind of farming has a significant impact on the environment. Commercial greenhouses have to be lit
This greatly restricts the harm posed to the environment. People have been interested in using silver nanoparticles for antimicrobial purposes,
but there are lingering concerns about their environmental impact due to the long-term effects of the used metal nanoparticles released in the environment.
have minimal environmental impact, and are priced affordably. We expect this method to have a broad impact.
Brandl says. hen we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove toxic chemicals, pollutants,
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
and now nrichedby the pollutants they form larger aggregates that can then be removed through filtration, sedimentation,
and molecules. he interactions we exploit to remove the pollutants are nonspecific, Brandl says. e can remove hormones, BPA,
and we can do this in one step. nd the nanoparticleshigh surface-area-to-volume ratio means that only a small amount is needed to remove a relatively large quantity of pollutants.
thus offer potential for the cost-effective cleanup of contaminated water and soil on a wider scale. rom the applied perspective,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
Overwatering puts pressure on an already scarce and expensive resource increases pollution from nutrient-rich runoff affects the quality of the fruit
that can extract energy from the environment to recharge. Last week, at the Symposia on VLSI Technology And circuits, MIT researchers presented a new power converter chip that can harvest more than 80 percent of the energy trickling into it,
understanding the biochemical sensing between organisms could have far reaching implications in ecology, biology, and robotics.
To overcome this, Controlled Environments reports that the research group designed materials based around polymers and wax.
and in turn, all that agricultural activity has contributed to a region that has one of the worst air pollution records in the country.
Furthermore, effluent from cow waste is a huge threat to what already are stressed the San joaquin valley watersheds.
On the upside, all that agricultural waste creates a solid biofuels pipeline. Forget the food-versus-fuel debate:
especially cow manure, is becoming expensive and of course, problematic for the local environment. Biofuels, clean energy, renewable energy, biofuels, biogas, cow manure, waste diversion, Pixley, Calgren, Regensis, Tulare County, DVO, California Energy Commission, dairy industry, San joaquin valley
The recent launch of the Calgren Ethanol Plant in the Tulare County town of Pixley is a step in helping California meet its clean energy goals while addressing the San joaquin valley terrible air pollution.
More biorefineries such as the Calgren plant could help California solve multiple challenges a boost in production of clean transport fuels, the reduction in agricultural waste and for local residents,
better air quality in the San joaquin valley. here is enough organic waste (in California) to power 2 to 3 million homes
and more energy-efficient process for removing greenhouse gas from power plant emissions has been developed by a multi-institution team of researchers.
Power generating plants are the single largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2) a greenhouse gas that traps heat
According to the U s. Environmental protection agency coal-and natural gas-fired plants were responsible for one-third of U s. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012.
That's why the agency has proposed rules mandating dramatically reduced carbon emissions at all new fossil fuel-fired power plants.
MECS provide a new way to capture carbon with fewer environmental issues says Roger D. Aines leader of the fuel cycle innovations program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and a co
Capturing the world's carbon emissions is a huge job; we need technology that can be applied to many kinds of carbon dioxide sources with the public's full confidence in the safety and sustainability.
Aines says that the MECS-based approach can also be tailored to industrial processes like steel and cement production significant greenhouse gas sources.
These permeable silicone beads could be sliced a-bread'breakthrough for CO2 capture--efficient easy-to-handle minimal waste
#Meet the Machine That's Turning Grocery stores'Food waste Into Fertilizer Larry Lesueur is used to former peers from the software world asking him,
-based WISERG, anxious to solve the growing problem of food waste in America. That righthe duo went from high-tech to food scraps,
let first and foremost try to understand why food waste was being generated. If I can understand it, we can figure out what we can do to alter behavior,
spent two years using a PCC store as a iving laboratory to understand how food waste is created in a retail grocery environment. n 2010 the WISERG teamith the help of biologists, computer programmers and engineerseveloped a solution:
After food waste is converted, the resulting liquid is picked up by a pumping company and delivered to a WISERG processing facility (there one in the Pacific Northwest;
The Harvester also delivers data to help stores cut down their food waste. t not about just how much goes out the back door
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