#materials science

[materialsscienceandengineering]

E-Waste Disposal Practices

Estimates put the amount of electronic waste produced annually at around 50-60 million tons, a number that continues to increase. While this is only a small percentage of the total waste produced around the world, the toxic components that can be found in electronic waste can have a disproportionate effect on the environment. Some electronics, like batteries, are prohibited from being disposed of by consumers in the general waste stream (in some countries, at least), but not all electronics have such restrictions. When disposal is used, e-waste typically winds up in landfills or incinerators, both of which can release harmful chemicals to the environment.

With disposal discarded as an option, there are three general remaining scenarios: reuse, refurbishment, or recycling. For the general consumer, the specifics of the more sustainable methods are often irrelevant; individuals need only find a company that collects e-waste. However, research should be done to determine the end location for the waste, as some collection agencies simply ship the waste off to other countries for disposal. (There is also the question of wiping electronics which can contain personal information, but that is a topic for a different forum.)

Sources/Further Reading: (Image source - Earth.org) (EPA) (EPA - Used batteries) (Safety Culture) (EcoWatch) (WHO)

#Materials Science #Science #Waste #Electronics #WasteWednesday #2024Daily

[mindblowingscience]

A newly developed silicon material covered with tiny nanospikes is capable of taking out 96 percent of the virus particles unfortunate enough to touch its surface in tests. It could find a use in hospitals, science labs, and anywhere surfaces need to be as sterile as possible. The nanospikes literally skewer virus particles as they make contact, according to the team behind the study, led by researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Australia. This action breaks the viruses apart or damages them enough to stop them from reproducing. It's somewhat like puncturing a balloon, with almost all viral activity on the surface wiped out in six hours.

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#Science #Health #Materials Science #Viruses #Sanitization

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall free version! LEGALLY paywall free version, even!

“Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution.

The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores. But there are many questions about how to scale the product.

“What we have invented, you can imagine it’s like a small-scale, man-made cloud,” said Jun Yao, a professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the senior author of the study. “This is really a very easily accessible, enormous source of continuous clean electricity. Imagine having clean electricity available wherever you go.”

That could include a forest, while hiking on a mountain, in a desert, in a rural village or on the road.

The air-powered generator, known as an “Air-gen,” would offer continuous clean electricity since it uses the energy from humidity, which is always present, rather than depending on the sun or wind. Unlike solar panels or wind turbines, which need specific environments to thrive, Air-gens could conceivably go anywhere, Yao said.

Less humidity, though, would mean less energy could be harvested, he added. Winters, with dryer air, would produce less energy than summers.

The device, the size of a fingernail and thinner than a single hair, is dotted with tiny holes known as nanopores. The holes have a diameter smaller than 100 nanometers, or less than a thousandth of the width of a strand of human hair.

The tiny holes allow the water in the air to pass through in a way that would create a charge imbalance in the upper and lower parts of the device, effectively creating a battery that runs continuously.

“We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air,” Xiaomeng Liu, another author and a UMass engineering graduate student, said in a statement.

While one prototype only produces a small amount of energy — almost enough to power a dot of light on a big screen — because of its size, Yao said Air-gens can be stacked on top of each other, potentially with spaces of air in between. Storing the electricity is a separate issue, he added.

Yao estimated that roughly 1 billion Air-gens, stacked to be roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce a kilowatt and partly power a home in ideal conditions. The team hopes to lower both the number of devices needed and the space they take up by making the tool more efficient. Doing that could be a challenge.

The scientists first must work out which material would be most efficient to use in different climates. Eventually, Yao said he hopes to develop a strategy to make the device bigger without blocking the humidity that can be captured. He also wants to figure out how to stack the devices on top of each other effectively and how to engineer the Air-gen so the same size device captures more energy.

It’s not clear how long that will take.

“Once we optimize this, you can put it anywhere,” Yao said.

It could be embedded in wall paint in a home, made at a larger scale in unused space in a city or littered throughout an office’s hard-to-get-to spaces. And because it can use nearly any material, it could extract less from the environment than other renewable forms of energy.

“The entire earth is covered with a thick layer of humidity,” Yao said. “It’s an enormous source of clean energy. This is just the beginning in making use of that.””

-via The Washington Post, 5/26/23

#green energy #clean energy #materials science #science #green technology #sustainability #massachusetts #advanced materials #advanced technologies #meteorology #humidity #air-gen #electricity #good news #hope

[vaguegrant]

Hey, so what if we had a more sustainable transparent material stronger than carbon nanofibers?

One of the most interesting articles I'll read this week, I suspect. Lots of details about the process, as well as more recent incremental improvements to producing this in a greener and more scalable way.

#materials science #transparent wood #science news #climate science

[dealer-of-soup]

favorite thing about grad school is cringe culture is truly dead and everyone just talks about there special interests all the time. talking about your favorite element is just a normal thing to do over drinks. my advisor told me her favorite oxide today. literally blorbo from my vacuum chamber.

#grad school #materials science #mse

[materiallugy]

What is so special about a cast iron pan?

Cooking pans made of cast iron are favored for their durability, excellent heat retention, and versatility. Cast iron pans has the ability to retain and distribute heat evenly across its surface, can last for generations, and work well on various heat sources. When properly seasoned, they develop a natural non-stick surface, making them suitable for a range of cooking methods. Additionally, cast iron can contribute to iron enrichment in food and is more affordable than some high-end cookware materials. Despite these advantages, proper care, including regular seasoning and avoiding harsh cleaning methods, is essential for maintaining the longevity and performance of cast iron pans.

Read more:

#materials science #materials science and engineering #metals #alloys #cast iron #engineering #cast iron pan #materials

[balladedutempsjadis]

I don’t post about this on Tumblr but I have a huge (amateur) interest in materials science, so imagine my delight in learning that South India in the early medieval period was quite a center of advanced metallurgy. In addition to the amazing Chola bronzes (and their casting techniques), extremely high-quality carbon steel weaponry was produced in Southern India (Tamil Nadu first but also Golconda later on) centuries before it became famous as “Damascus” steel. Exports of “Wootz” steel from India, famous for both its strength and the sharpness of the blades made from it, were shaped by Arab sword makers (particularly in Damascus) and because Western Europeans were more likely to encounter Damascus steel than Tamil Nadu steel the name Damascus stuck.

Anyway, the sword that Aditha Karikalan gives to Vandiyadevan is really the most modern and effective weapons technology of its day. The cutting edge, if you can pardon the terrible pun. I would imagine that a sword from the Royal armory is even more top-notch than your common steel sword.

These swords had beautiful patterns in the blade from the carbon deposits that gave the steel its strength and ability to be honed to the extra-sharp setting.

I don’t know whether George R R Martin has mentioned Damascus steel as an inspiration for his magical Valyrian steel but it definitely seems to have inspired it (the patterns in the blade, their sharpness and strength.)

(The above is all my amateur’s understanding so if anyone knows more about this, I am very happy to be corrected :) I was just wondering what the Chola weaponry would have been made of, whether they would use steel, bronze, iron, etc and lo and behold, there’s a whole fascinating world of ancient metallurgy out there.)

#metallurgy #materials science #a song of ice and fire #Ponniyin Selvan

[low-key-satan]

(An actual Scientific Paper's Introduction: The relativistic glass transition: A thought experiment, C.J. Wilkinson, K. Doss, G. Palmer, J.C. Mauro)

#physics #materials science #funny #science memes #science

[berkeley-engineering]

Gerbrand Ceder, professor of materials science and engineering and senior faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, is moving his research into a new space – quite literally. 

Berkeley Lab’s A-Lab automates synthesizing materials that have been designed computationally, dramatically speeding up a typically slow and laborious process. According to Ceder, not only is this a potential game-changer for battery research, but this new approach may mark the biggest innovation in materials research in the last 70 years.

Read the Berkeley Engineer story.

#berkeley #engineering #uc berkeley #science #university #bay area #materials science #laboratory #science news

[charyou-tree]

Time to get my rocks off

The local mineral club is having their annual Rock, Mineral, and Gem show again! I can't wait to go see what I can find...

#rocks #minerals #gems #geology #geoblr #mineral specimen #mineral collection #materials science

[hhliu]

From Prof. Natelson, a collaborator and colleague of Prof. Morosan, my research advisor at Rice

#nanotechnology #materials science #physics #science #education

[materialsscienceandengineering]

'Forever chemicals' destroyed by simple new method

PFAS, a group of manufactured chemicals commonly used since the 1940s, are called "forever chemicals" for a reason. Bacteria can't eat them; fire can't incinerate them; and water can't dilute them. And, if these toxic chemicals are buried, they leach into surrounding soil, becoming a persistent problem for generations to come.

Now, Northwestern University chemists have done the seemingly impossible. Using low temperatures and inexpensive, common reagents, the research team developed a process that causes two major classes of PFAS compounds to fall apart, leaving behind only benign end products.

The simple technique potentially could be a powerful solution for finally disposing of these harmful chemicals, which are linked to many dangerous health effects in humans, livestock and the environment.

"PFAS has become a major societal problem," said Northwestern's William Dichtel, who led the study. "Even just a tiny, tiny amount of PFAS causes negative health effects, and it does not break down. We can't just wait out this problem. We wanted to use chemistry to address this problem and create a solution that the world can use. It's exciting because of how simple—yet unrecognized—our solution is."

Read more.

#Materials Science #Science #Environment #PFAS #Reactions #Northwestern University

[mindblowingscience]

The newly discovered ice is amorphous—that is, its molecules are in a disorganized form, not neatly ordered as they are in ordinary, crystalline ice. Amorphous ice, although rare on Earth, is the main type of ice found in space. That is because in the colder environment of space, ice does not have enough thermal energy to form crystals.

For the study, published in the journal Science, the research team used a process called ball milling, vigorously shaking ordinary ice together with steel balls in a jar cooled to -200 degrees Celsius.

They found that, rather than ending up with small bits of ordinary ice, the process yielded a novel amorphous form of ice that, unlike all other known ices, had the same density as liquid water and whose state resembled water in solid form. They named the new ice "medium-density amorphous ice" (MDA).

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#science #stem #chemistry #materials science #water #ice

[mindblowingscience]

Scientists from the University of Rochester have developed new electrochemical approaches to clean up pollution from "forever chemicals" found in clothing, food packaging, firefighting foams, and a wide array of other products. A new Journal of Catalysis study describes nanocatalysts developed to remediate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS. The researchers, led by assistant professor of chemical engineering Astrid Müller, focused on a specific type of PFAS called Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), which was once widely used for stain-resistant products but is now banned in much of the world for its harm to human and animal health. PFOS is still widespread and persistent in the environment despite being phased out by US manufacturers in the early 2000s, continuing to show up in water supplies.

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#Science #Enviroment #Materials Science #Pollution #Water #Plastics #Recycling

[mindblowingscience]

Water and electronics don't usually mix, but as it turns out, batteries could benefit from some H2O. By replacing the hazardous chemical electrolytes used in commercial batteries with water, scientists have developed a recyclable 'water battery' – and solved key issues with the emerging technology, which could be a safer and greener alternative.

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#Science #Energy #Enviroment #Chemistry #Materials Science #Batteries #Water #Recycling

[mindblowingscience]

Many people are familiar with the haunting images of wildlife—including sea turtles, dolphins and seals—tangled in abandoned fishing nets. The main issue behind Nylon-6, the plastic inside these nets, carpet and clothing, is that it's too strong and durable to break down on its own. So, once it's in the environment, it lingers for thousands of years, littering waterways, breaking corals and strangling birds and sea life. Now, Northwestern University chemists have developed a new catalyst that quickly, cleanly and completely breaks down Nylon-6 in a matter of minutes—without generating harmful byproducts. Even better: The process does not require toxic solvents, expensive materials or extreme conditions, making it practical for everyday applications. Not only could this new catalyst play an important role in environmental remediation, it also could perform the first step in upcycling Nylon-6 wastes into higher-value products. The research was published on Thursday (Nov. 30) in the journal Chem.

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#Science #Chemistry #Materials Science #Enviroment #Plastics #Recycling