It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, January 17, 2022
Canadian study shows low incident of false positive test results from rapid antigen tests
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
IMAGE: THE STUDY LOOKED AT THE RESULTS FROM RAPID ANTIGEN TESTS THAT WERE ADMINISTRATED AS AN EXTRA LAYER OF PROTECTION TO CONTROL TRANSMISSION IN WORKPLACES THROUGHOUT CANADA BY THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION LAB RAPID SCREENING CONSORTIUM (CDL RSC). THE CONSORTIUM IS AN UNPRECEDENTED COLLABORATION AMONG BUSINESSES, RESEARCHERS, AND GOVERNMENT WORKING TOGETHER TO PROMOTE THE LAUNCH OF WORKPLACE RAPID SCREENING ACROSS CANADA TO REOPEN THE ECONOMY IN A SAFE WAY. THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION LAB (CDL) DELIVERS A SEED-STAGE PROGRAM FOR MASSIVELY SCALABLE, SCIENCE-BASED COMPANIES AND WAS FOUNDED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT.view more
CREDIT: CDL RSC
January 14, 2022
Canadian Study Shows Low Incident of False Positive Test Results from Rapid Antigen Tests.
Toronto – A timely new study investigated the incidence of false-positive results in a large sample of rapid antigen tests used to serially screen asymptomatic workers throughout Canada. The study, published in JAMA,an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, showed the overall rate of false-positive results among the total rapid antigen test screens for SARS-CoV-2 was very low.
The study looked at the results from rapid antigen tests that were administrated as an extra layer of protection to control transmission in workplaces throughout Canada by the Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium (CDL RSC). The Consortium is an unprecedented collaboration among businesses, researchers, and government working together to promote the launch of workplace rapid screening across Canada to reopen the economy in a safe way. The Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) delivers a seed-stage program for massively scalable, science-based companies and was founded at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Authors of the study were Professor Ajay Agrawal, founder of the CDL and Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Rotman School; Professor Joshua Gans, Chief Economist of the CDL and Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School; Professor Avi Goldfarb, Chief Data Scientist at the CDL and the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare at the Rotman School; Sonia Sennik, executive director of CDL and CDL RSC; Professor Janice Stein, vice-president, strategy at CDL RSC and founding director of UofT’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy; and Professor Laura Rosella, vice president, health at CDL RSC and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics at UofT’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
The study examined rapid antigen tests conducted by employees from January 11 to October 13, 2021, with some workplaces providing at-home screening and others on-site screening programs. Over this period, Canada experienced two significant variant–driven waves from March to June and August to October. The study found only .05% of over 900,000 tests administered had false-positive results.
The study also revealed that a cluster of false-postives at two workplaces was likely the result of manufacturing issues rather than implementation and demonstrate the importance of having a comprehensive data system to quickly identify potential issues. With the ability to identify batch issues within 24 hours, workers could return to work, problematic test batches could be discarded, and the public health authorities and manufacturer could be informed.
Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society. Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.
The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
False-Positive Results in Rapid Antigen Tests for SARS-CoV-2
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Jan-2022
COI STATEMENT
All authors are members of the Steering Committee of the Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium (CDL RSC; a nonprofit organization in Canada). Dr Agrawal reported serving on the boards of Genpact and Sanctuary.
Repeated exposure to major disasters has long-term mental health impacts
Repeated exposure to major disasters does not make people mentally stronger, a recent study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health found: individuals who have been repeatedly exposed to major disasters show a reduction in mental health scores.
Additionally, the research team found that the more experience the individuals had with such events, the lower their mental health was.
Sansom and a team of Texas A&M researchers studied individuals from the Houston area, which is susceptible to hurricanes and flooding as well as industrial emergencies. The results of the study were published recently in the journal Natural Hazards.
From 2000 to 2020, Texas — one of the states most prone to natural disasters — experienced 33 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared major disasters. Many of these — hurricanes, winter weather, drought and flooding — impacted the Houston area. The area has also been impacted by emergencies such as explosions and chemical releases at nearby industrial facilities.
According to the research team, the combination of natural disasters and emergencies from industrial facilities presents a unique opportunity to observe the impacts.
“There is an unfortunate truth that many communities that reside along the Gulf Coast are at the nexus of exposures from natural and anthropogenic, or human-caused, hazards,” Sansom said.
The team used a 12-item short form health survey to gather information. The survey assessed cumulative impacts from exposure to evaluate changes over time, producing a composite score for both mental (MCS) and physical (PCS) health.
The majority of the respondents reported that they experienced many hazardous events over the past five years. Hurricanes and flooding (96.35 percent) were the events experienced the most, followed by industrial fires (96.08), chemical spills (86.84) and tornados (79.82).
The team found that when individuals experienced two or more events over the past five years, their MCS averages fell below the expected national levels.
“Mental health is often overlooked in responding to and preparing for hazard exposures,” Sansom said. “However, in order to reach community resilience efforts, mental conditions need to be accounted for.”
The results of the study help to reveal the long-term mental impact hazards can have. More importantly, they underscore the need for public health interventions targeted toward these individuals as well as the communities where they reside.
The 4,500-year-old iconography and texts from Mesopotamia show that the elite used equids for travel and warfare; however, the nature of these animals remained mysterious. In Science Advances (January 14, 2022) a team from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris) used ancient DNA to show that these animals were the result of crossing domestic donkeys with wild asses. This makes them the oldest known example of animal hybrids, which were produced by Syro-Mesopotamian societies 500 years before the arrival of domestic horses in the region.
Equids have played a key role in the evolution of warfare throughout history. Although domesticated horses did not appear in the Fertile Crescent until about 4,000 years ago1, the Sumerians had already been using equid-drawn four-wheeled war wagons on the battlefield for centuries, as evidenced by the famous "Standard of Ur", a 4,500-year-old Sumerian mosaic (see photo). Cuneiform clay tablets from this period also mention prestigious equids with a high market value called "kunga"; however, the precise nature of this animal has been the subject of controversy for decades.
A team of palaeogeneticists from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris) has addressed this question by studying the equid genomes from the 4,500-year-old princely burial complex of Umm el-Marra (northern Syria). On the basis of morphological and archaeological criteria, these animals, buried in separate installations, have been proposed to be the prestigious "kungas" by an archaeozoologist from the United States.
CAPTION
Enclosure D with T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe, south-east of present-day Turkey. This archaeological site includes the world's oldest known temple.
Although degraded, the genome of these animals could be compared to those of other equids: horses, domestic donkeys and wild asses of the hemione family, specially sequenced for this study. The latter includes the remains of an 11,000-year-old equid from the oldest known temple, Göbekli Tepe (south-east of present-day Turkey), and the last representatives of Syrian wild asses that disappeared in the early 20th century. According to the analyses, the equids of Umm el-Marra are first generation hybrids resulting from the cross of a domestic donkey and a male hemione. As kungas were sterile and the hemiones were wild, it was necessary each time to cross a domestic female with a previously captured hemione (capture represented on an Assyrian bas-relief from Nineveh).
Rather than domesticating the wild horses that populated the region, the Sumerians produced and used hybrids, combining the qualities of the two parents to produce offspring that were stronger and faster than donkeys (and much faster than horses) but more controllable than hemiones. These kungas were eventually supplanted by the arrival of the domestic horse, which was easier to reproduce, when it was imported to the region from the Pontic Steppe.
CAPTION
Umm el-Marra (northern Syria) is a 4,500-year-old princely burial complex. Several equids have been found on the site, buried in their own installations.
IMAGE: ADDRESSING ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUNDLY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS IN BIOLOGY, A RUTGERS-LED TEAM HAS DISCOVERED THE STRUCTURES OF PROTEINS THAT MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ORIGINS OF LIFE IN THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP OF ANCIENT EARTH.view more
CREDIT: RUTGERS
New Brunswick, N.J. (Jan. 14, 2022) – Addressing one of the most profoundly unanswered questions in biology, a Rutgers-led team has discovered the structures of proteins that may be responsible for the origins of life in the primordial soup of ancient Earth.
The study appears in the journal Science Advances.
The researchers explored how primitive life may have originated on our planet from simple, non-living materials. They asked what properties define life as we know it and concluded that anything alive would have needed to collect and use energy, from sources such as the Sun or hydrothermal vents.
In molecular terms, this would mean that the ability to shuffle electrons was paramount to life. Since the best elements for electron transfer are metals (think standard electrical wires) and most biological activities are carried out by proteins, the researchers decided to explore the combination of the two — that is, proteins that bind metals.
They compared all existing protein structures that bind metals to establish any common features, based on the premise that these shared features were present in ancestral proteins and were diversified and passed down to create the range of proteins we see today.
Evolution of protein structures entails understanding how new folds arose from previously existing ones, so the researchers designed a computational method that found the vast majority of currently existing metal-binding proteins are somewhat similar regardless of the type of metal they bind to, the organism they come from or the functionality assigned to the protein as a whole.
“We saw that the metal-binding cores of existing proteins are indeed similar even though the proteins themselves may not be,” said the study’s lead author Yana Bromberg, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “We also saw that these metal-binding cores are often made up of repeated substructures, kind of like LEGO blocks. Curiously, these blocks were also found in other regions of the proteins, not just metal-binding cores, and in many other proteins that were not considered in our study. Our observation suggests that rearrangements of these little building blocks may have had a single or a small number of common ancestors and given rise to the whole range of proteins and their functions that are currently available -- that is, to life as we know it.”
“We have very little information about how life arose on this planet, and our work contributes a previously unavailable explanation,” said Bromberg, whose research focuses on deciphering the DNA blueprints of life’s molecular machinery. “This explanation could also potentially contribute to our search for life on other planets and planetary bodies. Our finding of the specific structural building blocks is also possibly relevant for synthetic biology efforts, where scientists aim to construct specifically active proteins anew.”
The study, funded by NASA, also included researchers from the University of Buenos Aires.
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ABOUT RUTGERS—NEW BRUNSWICK Rutgers University–New Brunswick is where Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, began more than 250 years ago. Ranked among the world’s top 60 universities, Rutgers’s flagship is a leading public research institution and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. It has an internationally acclaimed faculty, 12 degree-granting schools and the Big Ten Conference’s most diverse student body.
JOURNAL
Science Advances
ARTICLE TITLE
Quantifying structural relationships of metal-binding sites suggests origins of biological electron transfer
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
14-Jan-2022
It wasn't just Trump: Four years later, politics still make people sick
2020 surveys show huge numbers of Americans perceive that politics exact a chronic negative toll on their health
Scrolling social media, reading websites, listening to podcasts, watching news. With so many options, it’s never been easier to follow American politics, but at what cost?
According to research from University of Nebraska–Lincoln political scientist Kevin Smith, all the political jockeying is harmful to our health, has been for some time, and even a change in party power didn’t help.
In a follow-up to the groundbreaking 2017 survey study where he first measured the effects of the political climate on Americans’ physical, social, mental and emotional health, Smith has published a new article in PLOS ONE. Smith repeated the same 32-question survey twice in 2020 — two weeks prior to the election, and two weeks after. The 2020 findings mirrored the 2017 results, and again found that a large proportion of American adults blame politics for causing them stress, loss of sleep, fractured relationships and more.
Similar to the 2017 findings, the 2020 surveys found that an estimated 40% of Americans identified politics as a significant source of stress. Additionally, between a fifth and a third of adults (50 to 85 million people) blamed politics for causing fatigue, feelings of anger, loss of temper and triggering compulsive behaviors. About a quarter of adults reported they’d given serious consideration to moving because of politics.
That the results remained mostly stable after nearly four years is cause for alarm, Smith said.
“This second round of surveys pretty conclusively demonstrates that the first survey was not out of left field — that what we found in that first survey really is indicative of what many Americans are experiencing,” Smith, chair and professor of political science, said. “It’s also unpleasant to think that in that span of time, nothing changed. A huge chunk of American adults genuinely perceive politics is exacting a serious toll on their social, their psychological and even their physical health.”
Smith repeated the survey with the same group of people both before and after the election to see if the election’s outcome — whatever it ended up being — would recast people’s perceptions.
“We wondered if a change in presidency, which indeed was the case, would shift attitudes, and the short answer is no,” Smith said. “If anything, the costs that people perceive politics is exacting on their health increased a little bit after the election.”
Most stunning to Smith was the repeated finding that 5% of Americans blame politics for having suicidal thoughts.
“One in 20 adults has contemplated suicide because of politics,” Smith said. “That showed up in the first survey in 2017, and we wondered if it was a statistical artifact. But in the two surveys since, we found exactly the same thing, so millions of American adults have contemplated suicide because of politics. That’s a serious health problem.”
Adults who were most likely to be negatively affected by politics were younger, more often Democratic-leaning, more interested in politics and more politically engaged.
“If there’s a profile of a person who is more likely to experience these effects from politics, it’s people with those traits,” Smith said.
Besides pointing to a possible health crisis, Smith warned the findings could be a bad recipe for democracy.
“There’s potential for a demobilization effect here,” Smith said. “If people view politics as so conflictual, and potentially a threat to their own well-being, they’ll say ‘heck with it, I don’t want to get involved.’ And democracies depend on participation. We need civically-engaged citizens.”
So, how can these effects be mitigated? Smith said that’s a question he plans to explore further in future research, though his team has identified one possible tool: becoming more politically knowledgeable.
“People who were more politically knowledgeable were less likely to report these negative outcomes,” Smith said. “Something I’d really like to look at would be if you took somebody who’s politically interested, but not particularly politically knowledgeable, and they were given information about the political system, would that reduce these negative costs of politics? That could be a positive outcome of civic education that’s never been considered before.”
JOURNAL
PLoS ONE
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Politics is making us sick: The negative impact of political engagement on public health during the Trump administration
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
14-Jan-2022
Study finds national and international frameworks are imperative for implementing nature-based solutions in Asia
Cohesive, cross-sectoral strategies can promote nature-based solutions for climate security, socioeconomic development, and eco-sustainability
IMAGE: CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTING NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS IN ASIA CROSS-SECTORAL STRATEGIES AND COORDINATION BETWEEN FRAGMENTED INSTITUTIONS AND ACTORS IS ESSENTIAL FOR NBS IMPLEMENTATION IN ASIAview more
CREDIT: FORESTRY AND FOREST PRODUCTS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, JAPAN
Recognized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), nature-based solutions (NbS) refer to solutions that bring together human well-being, environmental sustainability, and biodiversity benefits. NbS are also key elements to post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery strategies. NbS include a variety of elements, starting from ecosystem-based climate change mitigation to ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction measures. While the techniques behind NbS may not be new, incorporating them into national and international governance frameworks for their effective implementation is.
Most studies on NbS focus on Europe. The European Union was an early adopter of NbS and has ensured its promotion by linking NbS with the European Green Deal and COVID-19 pandemic recovery. The region has firmly established links between NbS and various actors (governments, institutions, businesses, etc.). But the same cannot be said of Asia. There remains a lack of cohesive regional strategy for implementing NbS in Asia, as well as limited cross-sectoral local and national governance to promote NbS and green recovery strategies. The large number of developing countries in Asia also presents a problem for the promotion and realization of NbS.
In a new study, published in Politics and Governance, researchers Dr. Kanako Morita from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and Associate Professor Ken’ichi Matsumoto of Toyo University, Japan, have elaborated the governance challenges to implementing NbS in East, Southeast, and South Asian regions. “Implementing NbS governance in countries at different stages of economic development is tricky, as is developing measures for NbS with different institutions and actors,” explains Dr. Morita.
The findings of their study indicated that climate change mitigation, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and infrastructure are three areas where NbS have been widely implemented in Asian countries. These areas are also linked to climate security issues, including ecological security. However, there is scope for further work, particularly to ensure uniformity in implementing NbS across diverse regions. “Current discussions on NbS governance focus on urban areas, but NbS are essential across a wide range of landscapes and seascapes and across jurisdictional boundaries. In developing countries particularly, there is a need for international cooperation in NbS governance,” observes Dr. Morita, in this context.
The researchers found that NbS have links to international frameworks related to the UNFCCC and CBD in the area of climate change (climate change mitigation), with clear national strategies, policies, and international financial mechanisms. The Paris Agreement is one of the main drivers behind this development. Unfortunately, however, discussion on cross-sectoral strategies, such as application of NbS to post-pandemic green recovery, has not been extensive in Asian countries so far.
In the field of DRR, NbS are linked to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Japan in particular is heavily invested in the promotion of ecosystem-based DRR (Eco-DRR). But the same cannot be said about other Asian countries. While some countries have incorporated Eco-DRR in their national strategies, the domestic governance and measures for implementation remain poor. The financial mechanisms for incorporating NbS in Eco-DRR need to be elaborated and clarified. Moreover, developing countries in particular need both financial and technical support to properly implement NbS for Eco-DRR.
Finally, the researchers found no official links between NbS and international frameworks in the infrastructure field. “There is no consensus on what NbS for infrastructure entails. This makes it very difficult to establish national policies or frameworks, and, more importantly, financial mechanisms for the implementation of NbS,” says Dr. Morita.
Taken together, the study highlights the fragmentation of institutions and actors in Asia, and the unique challenges this poses for the different types of NbS. The study also emphasizes the need for cooperation among local, national, and international actors including governments, and institutions. “Our analysis recognizes the need for a cross-sectoral framework to match the need for NbS with relevant actors and institutions at various scales. We also recommend creating guidelines to incorporate and promote NbS into local and national policy, as well as international cooperation,” concludes Dr. Morita.
Implementing these suggestions will surely help address the tragedy of the commons staring us all in the face¬—that is climate change—as well as achieve benefits for biodiversity and humans, both in the short-term, post pandemic, and with regards to long-term sustainable development.
About Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan Inaugurated as a unit for forest experiments in Tokyo in 1905, the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) was largely reorganized in 1988, when it received its current name. During its history of over 110 years, the FFPRI has been conducting interdisciplinary research on forests, forestry, the timber industry, and tree breeding with an agenda based around sustainable development goals. The FFPRI is currently looking to collaborate with more diverse stakeholders, such as international organizations, government agencies, and industry and academic leaders, to conduct much needed forest-related research and make sure we preserve these renewable resources.
About Dr. Kanako Morita from Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan Dr. Kanako Morita obtained her Ph.D. from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2010. She is currently a senior researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan. Her research areas are interdisciplinary approaches to improve climate change, biodiversity, forest, and renewable energy-related institutions. Her work focuses on governance and financial mechanisms to meet the needs of sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Morita is also an Assistant Professor at Keio University, Japan, visiting research fellow at the United Nations University, and visiting researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan.
Funding information This research is supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant numbers 19K12467, 18H03428, 18K11800, 19H04340, the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20181001) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature: Feasibility Project 14200158, the Diversity Promotion Office Fund of Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, and the Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU program) grant number JPMXD0717935715 of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
IMAGE: THIS GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATES THE FLOW OF A "CIRCULAR ECONOMY," AS OPPOSED TO THE "LINEAR ECONOMY" OF THE U.S. IN A CIRCULAR ECONOMY, PRODUCTS ARE PRODUCED, CONSUMED AND REUSED SO THAT THERE IS LITTLE OR NO WASTE LEFTOVER DURING ANY OF THOSE PROCESSES.view more
CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF DIONISIOS VLACHOS
Despite the society-changing improvements that plastic materials have brought to humanity, there’s no question that they also present us with new challenges regarding what to do with the large amounts of plastic waste we generate, from the oil-based chemicals used to create products to the microplastics found everywhere after plastics breakdown in the environment.
Finding a solution to plastics pollution that will work in the lab and in the real world will take a diverse team of innovative individuals with expertise that transcends the incredible talent found at the University of Delaware. That’s why researchers from UD’s College of Engineering and Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration are joining forces with experts at the University of Kansas and Pittsburg State University.
“The practices by which society works now are really not sustainable,” said Raul Lobo, Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering and associate department chair in UD’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who is leading the research effort for UD. “We need materials that minimize our dependency on fossil fuels and that allow consumers to recycle plastic products efficiently and with ease.To this end, the UD-KU team will develop new molecules that can be used to make a new generation of environmentally friendly plastics.”
The National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research has awarded the group $4 million in funding to do just that. About $1.4 million of that funding will go to UD to support this vast research effort to develop processes to transform “biomass,” such as agricultural byproducts, into commercially viable plastics materials and to chemically deconstruct such plastics effectively and efficiently so that they can be recycled and reused.
UD faculty members on the team include Professor Hui Fang with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor Kalim Shah with the Biden School and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professors Marianthi Ierapetritou, Lobo, Marat Orazov and Dionisios Vlachos.
Lobo, who also holds a joint professorship in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said the project will focus on developing polymers that behave like polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, a very common type of plastic found in consumer products such as water bottles, fleece and food-wrapping film. A polymer is a very long molecule, such as proteins, starch or DNA, that is built of repeated building units, like the adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T) in DNA molecules. Different polymers form by knitting together different building units. Once they are sufficiently long, they can be easily melted, shaped or molded, and solidify upon cooling
“We have ideas of polymers we think will make materials that are better than PET in a number of ways,” Lobo hinted. “Now, we have to prove it.”
From Biomass to Building Blocks
The goal is not only to find new materials with good and useful properties, but to do so using molecules with building blocks that come from biomass (and not fossil fuels like oil) and that are designed to be recyclable.
“We’re trying to make this society more sustainable by developing technology that has the potential to be practical,” Lobo said. “The material we’re trying to make … looks like the plastics we use today, but comes from biomass.”
For example, plants also produce sugars with fewer carbons than the sugar that we eat, and those sugars and their derivatives could be used as building blocks for plastics. The material has to be stable just enough, and strong enough, to hold up in another life as, say, a plastic bag. By focusing on biomass that’s not edible and not toxic — think of stalks from corn or leftover parts from harvested sugar cane — researchers will try to prepare new building blocks for plastics such that they don't compete with food sources, do not depend on fossil fuels and can be easily assembled and reassembled.
Then these engineers must figure out how to translate the science into actual societal benefit. That means also exploring the policy and economic elements associated with shifting the foundational building blocks of a product used in almost everything in our daily lives.
The practical implications of this work will certainly relate to cost. Six decades of experience making PET and using it in multiple products means six decades of being able to find cost efficiencies along the way. It will still take some time for any new building blocks that could replace PET, even if they are superior in performance and for the environment, to find all possible efficiencies and cost savings.
Over the next four years, up to five UD graduate students will play a role in this interdisciplinary research, from the machine learning that will be used to explore existing research literature and gaps in knowledge, to the chemistry of the components, to the economics of their application and recycling.
“There’s a vast amount of information there,” said Hui Fang, an associate professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We’re trying to develop a machine learning-based technique that can first extract information automatically from the literature and then allow the researchers to see what’s missing.”
From Wastefulness to Sustainability
With so much waste in the world — up to one-third of the food resources produced are actually wasted — it would be incredibly beneficial to find ways to reuse those tossed corn husks or the leftover fibers from sugar cane, particularly as we try to avoid 1.5 degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, experts emphasized that exceeding that level of warming will not only be catastrophic, but will be impossible if world nations cannot curb their reliance on fossil fuels.
The idea of a “circular economy,” in which products are produced, consumed and reused — as opposed to the “linear” way the world currently produces, consumes and trashes most products — could literally be that change the world needs. From the molecular beginnings of plastic products, energy is used and waste created. But is it possible to reduce this amount of energy and could the waste be reused in another production process?
“We’re thinking about how we can take the waste stream and make new building blocks,” said Dionisios Vlachos, Unidel Dan Rich Chair in Energy Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, director of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and director of the Delaware Energy Institute. “This is a global issue.”
Today, most plastics (and many of the other products we consume daily) are created from petrochemicals. Most plastics are not easily recycled because once they’re broken down into their original pieces, they are difficult to put back together again and so they ultimately end up as waste. UD’s investigators are in pursuit of novel chemicals that can be easily manufactured from biomass and that not only make outstanding plastics, but also could, with little effort, be transformed into raw materials for new plastic products.
“If we don’t take action today, things will be really bad in the future,” Vlachos said. “There are many waste streams with multiple societal health problems. They have to be addressed at a global scale. If we’re making renewable plastics, it would be great, but it’s just part of the story.”
A Holistic View
While some on the team will focus on the chemical engineering of the molecules themselves, Ierapetritou and her team will be analyzing those new materials for their potential environmental impacts, economic costs and whether the new product would be practically scalable from a small lab to a commercialized solution.
In this project, Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Marianthi Ierapetritou and her team will be analyze proposed new materials for biorenewable plastics for potential environmental impacts, economic costs and feasibility.
“Of course, this goes back to changing the culture of people or introducing different policies, which is one of the things we’re hoping to investigate,” said Ierapetritou, who is the Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD. “But you need policies, you need incentives to make the change that needs to be made.”
What they’re aiming to create may be expensive — possibly too expensive to compete without incentives. But even if some of the new material was used in plastics production, it could still help reduce the pollution associated with creating a product made with 5% or 10% biomass-sourced plastic, said Lobo.
“Our scientific and engineering folks say they can do this in the lab, and they can scale it up. But where is the acceptance or adoption of it?” said Shah, who will be exploring the economic and environmental implications of a substitute for plastics and its potential in real-world markets.
“I think there’s a real awareness now of linking the disciplines that we’re very well known for at UD — chemistry and chemical engineering — to the policy and macroeconomic business aspects of the problem,” he said. “I’m really happy to have colleagues that are willing to include my perspective and take a multidisciplinary approach to us to move forward together.”
If they find the solutions they believe exist, it would still take years before a plant capable of making thousands of tons of polymers goes online. The biomass-sourced building blocks could also be a boon for farmers and companies that work with the agricultural products that could become future plastics.
There’s also the potential they could create something even better: a biosourced plastic that can last longer or require less material.
Their work will also closely examine how to deconstruct these new polymers so that it can be a truly recyclable product. Lobo said he had no doubt they could succeed on that front. But whatever they uncover, they will publicize their findings and make them available to other researchers.
“If we succeed, we might be able to reduce, to some degree, the quantity of plastics or the amount of oil we consume,” Lobo said. “There are chemical reasons why some polymers have these good properties but others don’t. Based on that information, we’re going to eventually be able to provide better products for society. That’s what engineers do.”
