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)
Thursday, February 22, 2024
New biotechnology to remove phosphorus from wastewater given funding boost
A novel bio-based process able to remove and recover phosphorus from wastewater – developed by Cranfield University experts – has won almost half a million pounds of funding from OFWAT.
A novel bio-based process able to remove and recover phosphorus from wastewater – developed by Cranfield University experts – has won almost half a million pounds of funding from OFWAT.
The Water Discovery Challenge – which aims to accelerate the discovery, development and adoption of promising new innovations for the water sector – will see 10 innovators share up to £4.5 million to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the water sector.
Cranfield University – alongside US-based biotechnology company Microvi – has developed a new technology which uses bacteria to remove phosphorus from water without the need for coagulants.
Currently the water industry uses metal-based coagulants to remove phosphorus but the new bio-mineral phosphorus removal (BMPR) process does not use them, and it also helps to recover nutrients as re-usable salts. The long-term goal of the research is to commercialise the technology to save money, decrease environmental impacts of nutrient management whilst meeting environmental goals.
The bacteria used in new bio-mineral phosphorus removal (BMPR) process doesn’t currently exist in wastewater systems, but Microvi has developed engineered biocatalysts which enables the selected bacteria stay within the wastewater so that it can be effectively introduced.
Phosphorus is both a pollutant and a resource, but using coagulants to remove it from wastewater can be expensive as well as problematic because of supply chain risks, while it also introduces additional chemicals into the water cycle. Initial tests completed at Cranfield university using the BMPR technology shows a 96% removal of phosphorus from wastewater from a range of initial concentrations from 4 to 80 mg/L. This is the same result as if using traditional coagulants.
Ana Soares, Professor of Biotechnology Engineering at Cranfield University, said: “Our approach not only addresses the pressing issue of phosphorus pollution in wastewater but also offers a sustainable solution by exploiting the amazing beneficial potential of bacteria without relying on traditional coagulants and enables to recover a finite resource that is phosphorus.
“This funding will enable us to accelerate the commercialisation of our technology, ultimately benefiting both the water industry and the environment.”
Helen Campbell, Senior Director for Sector Performance at Ofwat said: “This competition was about reaching new innovators from outside the sector with different approaches and new ideas, and that’s exactly what the winners announced today are doing.
“The products and ideas recognised in this cross-sector challenge will equip water companies to better face challenges of the future – including achieving sustainability goals and meeting net zero targets – all while providing the highest-quality water for consumers.”
Ajay Nair, Global Director of Commercial and Technical Strategy at Microvi, highlighted the significance of the technology: "Microvi is delighted to offer a novel biological solution for phosphorus removal from wastewater, particularly one that can provide a secondary value by producing biostruvite, which could be reused in fertilisers. Microvi continues to push forward, developing solutions for the water and wastewater industry by exploiting the best microorganisms for reduction of nutrients and contaminants.”
New electrochemical system enables efficient metal recovery from industrial wastewater
(A) CU2+ CONCENTRATION CHANGE UNDER DIFFERENT ELECTRODEPOSITION BATCHES, (B) IMAGE OF CU RECOVERED FROM TE&SF ELECTRODEPOSITION, (C) ELECTRIC ENERGY AND SPECIFIC ENERGY CONSUMPTION DURING ELECTRODEPOSITION, AND (D) ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF THE ENTIRE PROCESS.
A research team at Tsinghua University led by Professor Huijuan Liu has developed a new electrochemical system that promises to revolutionize metal recovery from industrial wastewater. The research was published in Engineering.
Industrial wastewater poses significant environmental hazards due to heavy metal pollution. Current methods for metal recovery, such as electrodeposition, suffer from interfacial ion transport limitations, resulting in slow and low-quality recovery. In their study, the team proposed a novel approach that integrates a transient electric field (TE) and swirling flow (SF) to improve mass transfer and promote interfacial ion transport simultaneously.
The research team explored the effects of different operating conditions, including operation mode, transient frequency, and flow rate, on metal recovery. They discovered that the optimal conditions for rapid and efficient sequential recovery of copper in TE&SF mode were achieved with low and high electric levels of 0 and 4 V, a 50% duty cycle, a 1 kHz frequency, and a 400 L/h flow rate. The kinetic coefficients of TE&SF electrodeposition were found to be 3.5−4.3 times and 1.37−1.97 times that of single TE and SF electrodeposition, respectively.
To gain insights into the process, the team simulated the deposition process under TE and SF conditions. The results confirmed the efficient concurrence of interfacial ion transport and charge transfer, leading to rapid and high-quality metal recovery. The combined deposition strategy demonstrates not only effective metal pollution reduction but also promotes resource recycling.
This innovative approach overcomes the limitations of interfacial ion transport in conventional electrodeposition methods. By coupling a transient electric field with turbulent flow, the team successfully improves bulk and interfacial ion transport, thus enhancing the reaction kinetics. The synergy of the transient electric field and swirling flow achieves not only rapid metal recovery but also deposits with homogeneous compositions and uniform morphologies.
Furthermore, the system shows wide applicability in recovering metals with redox potentials higher than those of hydrogen evolution and water reduction. This capability allows for the high-value recovery of precious and heavy metals, making it a valuable asset for industries dealing with metal waste.
The research conducted by Professor Huijuan Liu and her team provides new insights into efficient metal recovery from industrial wastewater. Their findings open up possibilities for environmentally friendly and resource-efficient metal recycling processes, contributing to the reduction of pollution and the preservation of valuable resources.
The paper “Efficient Metal Recovery from Industrial Wastewater: Potential Oscillation and Turbulence Mode for Electrochemical System ” authored by Li Chen, Gong Zhang, Huijuan Liu, Shiyu Miao, Qingbai Chen, Huachun Lan, Jiuhui Qu. Full text of the open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2023.12.002. For more information about the Engineering, follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/EngineeringJrnl) & like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringJrnl).
About Engineering:
Engineering (ISSN: 2095-8099 IF:12.8) is an international open-access journal that was launched by the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) in 2015. Its aims are to provide a high-level platform where cutting-edge advancements in engineering R&D, current major research outputs, and key achievements can be disseminated and shared; to report progress in engineering science, discuss hot topics, areas of interest, challenges, and prospects in engineering development, and consider human and environmental well-being and ethics in engineering; to encourage engineering breakthroughs and innovations that are of profound economic and social importance, enabling them to reach advanced international standards and to become a new productive force, and thereby changing the world, benefiting humanity, and creating a new future.
CREDIT: BILL NICHOLLS, CC BY-SA 2.0 VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Scientists at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) have developed a robust method for detecting whether a toxic chemical used in car tyres is present in rivers, streams and lakes, and measuring its concentrations.
Tyre wear is one of the largest sources of microplastics in rivers, potentially posing a significant risk to wildlife that ingest the particles. Toxic chemicals present in these microplastics have already been linked to the deaths of salmon in the United States and trout in Canada.
The UKCEH project team chose 6PPD, a commonly-used additive in the manufacture of car tyres to prevent degradation of rubber, as the focus for their research. It was carried out on behalf of Defra as part of a wider project to develop a way of detecting and quantifying microplastics in river water and sediment.
UKCEH pollution scientist Dr Richard Cross explains: “From a scientific perspective, car tyres are a challenging material to investigate. Every tyre manufacturer uses a different formulation and can be quite closely guarded secrets.
“However, a handful of additives are used in the production of almost all vehicle tyres. These have relatively consistent concentrations and aren’t really used in anything except tyres. One of those is 6PPD and that’s why we decided to use it as the ‘red flag’ that told us tyre rubber was in our sample.”
As the additive degrades in the environment reacting with ozone, it transforms into a toxic compound called 6PPD-quinone, which can become dangerous to wildlife when it runs off into a water course during rainfall and storms. It has been implicated in Urban Runoff Mortality Syndrome, where stormwater discharges coincide with salmon returning to the streams where they were born, causing mass deaths of adult fish before they can reach these spawning grounds.
Since 2022, scientists from UKCEH have taken samples from sediment in the River Thames in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, next to a busy road bridge, and on the River Irk in Manchester. Sediment was chosen for monitoring because the particles from tyres and road wear are dense and can be relatively large and will quickly form part of the river sediment.
Sediments are very diverse and can undergo rapid changes, particularly during heavy rainfall. Any method to quantify toxic chemicals in sediments accurately must take into account how variable concentrations are where you are sampling. Through repeat sampling, the project team was able to detect differences between the more contaminated site on the River Irk, and the less contaminated sediments in the Thames at Wallingford.
Using gas chromatography mass-spectrometry techniques*, they analysed each sediment sample to detect the presence of 6PPD. By looking in detail at how variable each location could be, the team proposed a way their sampling method could be rolled out in future to robustly detect measure and quantify the presence of 6PPD and measure its quantity in water courses.
In addition to this work, UKCEH was able to use the same sampling design to quantify other microplastic fragments in both waters and sediments, an essential step towards understanding the extent tyre wear particle pollution compared to other sources of microplastic pollution in these rivers.
The chemical 6PPD has been identified as a priority substance for monitoring by the Environment Agency’s Prioritisation and Early Warning system and so the method developed at UKCEH provides an essential tool to understand more about this compound and the wider risks that microplastics and tyre wear pose to freshwaters in the UK. It is aimed at governments and regulators, as well as tyre and additive manufacturers that are interested in product risk assessment.
The UKCEH team is keen to hear from anyone interested in using the tool to monitor microplastics and tyre wear in the environment. You can get in touch and find out more about UKCEH’s research in this area via our microplastics analysis webpage.
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Media enquiries
Images are in a dropbox. For interviews and further information, contact Simon Williams, Media Relations Officer at UKCEH, via simwil@ceh.ac.uk or 07920 295384.
Notes to editors
Sediment samples were taken from a transect in Wallingford where a busy road bridge crosses the River Thames. A new method to extract 6PPD from these sediments and quantify this chemical indicator for the presence of tyre wear microplastics was developed using GC-MS, where the unique fingerprint of this chemical could be measured.
*About Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)
Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is a powerful tool used to study and monitor environmental pollutants in many types of environmental samples, such as water and soil. The Gas Chromatograph separates each contaminant within the sample according to their properties. The Mass Spectrometer analyses these components by their mass and the resulting characteristic pattern of masses detected can be used to demonstrate what and how much of those contaminants are present in the sample.
About the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) is a world-leading centre for excellence in environmental sciences across water, land and air.
We investigate the dispersal, fate and behaviour of chemicals and polluting substances in terrestrial and freshwater environments. Priority pollutants of interest include radionuclides, pesticides, organic pollutants, toxic metals, nutrients and manufactured nanomaterials and plastics.
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a strategic delivery partner for the Natural Environment Research Council.
TOM VARNER, A UTSA DOCTORAL STUDENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, EXPLORED THE MOBILITY OF ARSENIC FROM THE SEDIMENTS SURROUNDING THE MEGHNA RIVER IN BANGLADESH AS PART OF A NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION-FUNDED PROJECT.
From Bangladesh to India to Texas, Tom Varner is leveraging his research to improve sources for drinking water around the world.
Varner, a UTSA doctoral student in environmental science and engineering, explored the mobility of arsenic from the sediments surrounding the Meghna River in Bangladesh as part of a National Science Foundation-funded project.
The river flows through central Bangladesh, where elevated concentrations of arsenic in the groundwater threaten the welfare of millions of people. Long-term exposure to arsenic, which is toxic when ingested, can lead to cancer, epigenetic defects, vascular disease and other health ailments.
The project is a collaborative effort between researchers in the UTSA Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Most recently, Varner traveled to India in spring 2023 to complete a Fulbright research project along the Hooghly River. The work complimented the work he did along the Meghna River in Bangladesh.
Varner is working under the mentorship of Saugata Datta, director of the UTSA Institute for Water Research, Sustainability and Policy. The graduate student’s work, which integrates aspects of science, engineering and public health to address water resources, carries significance outside the laboratory.
“This represents a new research topic for UTSA,” Datta, professor and chair in the UTSA Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said. “As part of the international scope of this research project, UTSA experiences a high level of interest from the international scientific community. Varner’s work has established the groundwork for many aspects in upcoming proposals, which once funded, confirm UTSA’s classification as an R1 university.”
Varner is investigating a phenomenon known as the Natural Reactive Barrier (NRB) along the Meghna River and Hooghly Rivers wherein the mixing of oxygen-rich river water and reducing groundwater in the riverbank facilitates the formation of iron-oxides, which can effectively remove the arsenic from the groundwater.
A robust understanding of this natural phenomena may be used to identify low arsenic groundwater zones along rivers where drinking wells may be safely installed and can be further extrapolated to understand the cycling of metals and contaminants along river corridors.
“Understanding more about these processes and the natural reactions that occur between the river and aquifer will provide the groundwork for future studies to understand how contaminants behave in the environment,” Varner said. “There are social benefits that can be applied as well; preventing exposure to arsenic in drinking water can help to improve the health of afflicted communities. The research also is relevant for environmental risk assessment and remediation projects dealing with groundwater contamination along river corridors.”
Although the study’s primary focus is within Bangladesh, Varner’s research provides insights into the universal processes regulating arsenic in groundwater. His work can be applied to further understand similar groundwater systems in local areas.
“For example, the iron-enriched sediments within the deltaic aquifers along the Brazos River in Texas and the nearby Mississippi River delta are also associated with elevated arsenic in the groundwater and parallel the conditions we have observed in Bangladesh,” Datta said.
Varner has produced six publications detailing the processes responsible for high and low arsenic concentrations along the Meghna and Hooghly Rivers. He’s also contributing two book chapters to the upcoming book titled “Advances in River Corridor Research and Applications,” detailing work along the Hooghly and Beas Rivers in India.
“UTSA has provided a great platform to jump out and do this research, from the financial support of grants from Dr. Datta and support from the EPS department to go to conferences. The Graduate School has provided support through various means, such as graduate student travel grants and award-based competitions such as the Transdisciplinary Team Grand Challenge. There’s always support there,” Varner said.
First brain-wide map shows how sex and intimacy rewire the brain
How does sex relate to lasting love? To answer that question, scientists have long studied a small Midwestern rodent called the prairie vole, one of the few mammals known to form long-term, monogamous relationships.
A team of researchers including Steven Phelps at The University of Texas at Austin has created the first brain-wide map of regions that are active in prairie voles during mating and pair bonding. The researchers found that bonding voles experience a storm of brain activity distributed across 68 distinct brain regions that make up seven brain-wide circuits. The brain activity correlates with three stages of behavior: mating, bonding and the emergence of a stable, enduring bond.
Most of these brain regions the researchers identified were not previously associated with bonding, so the map reveals new places to look in the human brain to understand how we form and maintain close relationships.
Earlier studies concluded that male and female brains often use fundamentally different mechanisms to produce the same behaviors, such as mating and nurturing offspring. But in this study, bonding males and females had nearly identical patterns of brain activity.
“That was a surprise,” said Phelps, a professor of integrative biology at UT Austin and senior author of the new study in the journal eLife. “Sex hormones like testosterone, estrogen and progesterone are important for sexual, aggressive and parental behaviors, so the prevailing hypothesis was that brain activity during mating and bonding would also be different between the sexes.”
Compared with humans, prairie voles have whirlwind courtships. Within half an hour of being together, a male and female begin to have sex, and they will do so repeatedly, often many times an hour. Within a day, their amorousness will lead the pair to form a bond that can last a lifetime. Bonded pairs will groom each other, console each other when stressed, defend their shared territory and rear their young together.
The researchers were able to pinpoint with high resolution which brain cells were active in vole brains at various points over the course of the process that leads to and includes bonding. This is the first time such a method has been applied to prairie voles. By studying more than 200 prairie voles across multiple times during mating and bonding, the researchers produced an unprecedented and foundational data set.
The strongest predictor of activity across the 68 brain regions that the researchers identified surprised them. It was male ejaculation, suggesting the experience elicits a profound emotional state—and not only in the affected males. Females, too, had more bonding-related brain activity with males who reached that milestone.
“The brain and behavior data suggest that both sexes may be having orgasm-like responses, and these ‘orgasms’ coordinate the formation of a bond,” Phelps said. “If true, it would imply that orgasms can serve as a means to promote connection, as has long been suggested in humans.”
Phelps cautioned that it’s impossible to know whether a female prairie vole is having an orgasm simply by watching its sexual behavior, though previous research has found that some female animals such as monkeys have these physiological responses.
In addition to Phelps, the study’s co-authors are Morgan Gustison, a former postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin now at the University of Western Ontario, Rodrigo Muñoz-Castañeda at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Pavel Osten at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The National Institutes of Health funded the research.
A groundbreaking technology that can recognize human emotions in real time has been developed by Professor Jiyun Kim and his research team in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at UNIST. This innovative technology is poised to revolutionize various industries, including next-generation wearable systems that provide services based on emotions.
Understanding and accurately extracting emotional information has long been a challenge due to the abstract and ambiguous nature of human affects such as emotions, moods, and feelings. To address this, the research team has developed a multi-modal human emotion recognition system that combines verbal and non-verbal expression data to efficiently utilize comprehensive emotional information.
At the core of this system is the personalized skin-integrated facial interface (PSiFI) system, which is self-powered, facile, stretchable, and transparent. It features a first-of-its-kind bidirectional triboelectric strain and vibration sensor that enables the simultaneous sensing and integration of verbal and non-verbal expression data. The system is fully integrated with a data processing circuit for wireless data transfer, enabling real-time emotion recognition.
Utilizing machine learning algorithms, the developed technology demonstrates accurate and real-time human emotion recognition tasks, even when individuals are wearing masks. The system has also been successfully applied in a digital concierge application within a virtual reality (VR) environment.
The technology is based on the phenomenon of “friction charging,” where objects separate into positive and negative charges upon friction. Notably, the system is self-generating, requiring no external power source or complex measuring devices for data recognition.
Professor Kim commented, “Based on these technologies, we have developed a skin-integrated face interface (PSiFI) system that can be customized for individuals.” The team utilized a semi-curing technique to manufacture a transparent conductor for the friction charging electrodes. Additionally, a personalized mask was created using a multi-angle shooting technique, combining flexibility, elasticity, and transparency.
The research team successfully integrated the detection of facial muscle deformation and vocal cord vibrations, enabling real-time emotion recognition. The system’s capabilities were demonstrated in a virtual reality “digital concierge” application, where customized services based on users’ emotions were provided.
Jin Pyo Lee, the first author of the study, stated, “With this developed system, it is possible to implement real-time emotion recognition with just a few learning steps and without complex measurement equipment. This opens up possibilities for portable emotion recognition devices and next-generation emotion-based digital platform services in the future.”
The research team conducted real-time emotion recognition experiments, collecting multimodal data such as facial muscle deformation and voice. The system exhibited high emotional recognition accuracy with minimal training. Its wireless and customizable nature ensures wearability and convenience.
Furthermore, the team applied the system to VR environments, utilizing it as a “digital concierge” for various settings, including smart homes, private movie theaters, and smart offices. The system’s ability to identify individual emotions in different situations enables the provision of personalized recommendations for music, movies, and books.
Professor Kim emphasized, “For effective interaction between humans and machines, human-machine interface (HMI) devices must be capable of collecting diverse data types and handling complex integrated information. This study exemplifies the potential of using emotions, which are complex forms of human information, in next-generation wearable systems.”
The research was conducted in collaboration with Professor Lee Pui See of Nanyang Technical University in Singapore and was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and the Korea Institute of Materials (KIMS) under the Ministry of Science and ICT. The study was published online on January 15 in Nature Communications.
Figure 1. Schematic illustration of the system overview with personalized skin-integrated facial interfaces (PSiFI).
CREDIT
UNIST
Journal Reference Jin Pyo Lee, Hanhyeok Jang, Yeonwoo Jang, et al., “Encoding of multi-modal emotional information via personalized skin-integrated wireless facial interface,” Nat. Commun., (2024).
JOURNAL
Nature Communications
ARTICLE TITLE
Encoding of multi-modal emotional information via personalized skin-integrated wireless facial interface
Living in violent neighborhoods affects children's brain development
Nurturing parents can buffer against harmful effects, study finds
Living in neighborhoods with high levels of violence can affect children’s development by changing the way that a part of the brain detects and responds to potential threats, potentially leading to poorer mental health and other negative outcomes, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
However, nurturing parents can help protect kids against these detrimental effects, according to the study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology.
“Decades of research has shown that growing up in neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage can predict negative academic, behavioral and mental health outcomes in children and teens. And recent research is beginning to show that one way it does that is by impacting the developing brain,” said study co-author Luke W. Hyde, PhD, of the University of Michigan. “However, less is known about how neighborhood disadvantage ‘gets under the skin’ to impact brain development.”
Hyde and his colleagues hypothesized that one way might be through the amygdala, the hub of the brain’s stress response system that’s involved in socioemotional functioning, threat processing and fear learning. The amygdala is sensitive to facial expressions, and previous research has found that children who have been abused or neglected by family members, for example, show increased reactivity in the amygdala when looking at faces with negative, fearful or neutral expressions.
To study whether exposure to neighborhood violence might also affect children’s amygdala reactivity, the researchers analyzed data from 708 children and teens ages 7 to 19, recruited from 354 families enrolled in the Michigan Twins Neurogenetic Study. Most were from neighborhoods with above-average levels of poverty and disadvantage, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau. Fifty-four percent of the participants were boys, 78.5% were white, 13% were Black and 8% were other races and ethnicities. The participants lived in a mix of rural, suburban and urban areas in and around Lansing, Michigan.
Teens completed a set of surveys that asked about their exposure to community violence, their relationship with their parents and their parents’ parenting style. Participants also had their brains scanned by functional MRI while they looked at faces that were angry, fearful, happy or neutral.
Overall, the researchers found that participants who lived in more disadvantaged neighborhoods reported more exposure to community violence. And participants who reported more exposure to community violence showed higher levels of amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry faces. The results held true even when controlling for an individual family’s income, parental education and other forms of violence exposure in the home, such as harsh parenting and intimate partner violence.
“This makes sense as it’s adaptive for adolescents to be more in tune to threats when living in a more dangerous neighborhood,” said Hyde.
However, he and his colleagues also found that nurturing parents seemed to be able to break the link between community violence and amygdala reactivity in two ways.
“Despite living in a disadvantaged neighborhood, children with more nurturing and involved parents were not as likely to be exposed to community violence, and for those who were exposed, having a more nurturing parent diminished the impact of violence exposure on the brain,” said Gabriela L. Suarez, a graduate student in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study. “These findings really highlight how nurturing and involved parents are helping to support their children’s success, even in potentially harsh environments, and offer clues as to why some youth are resilient even when facing adversity.”
Overall, the researchers said, the study highlights the need for structural solutions to protect children from the negative impact of exposure to community violence. It also points to the ways in which strong, positive parents can promote resilience among children and teens exposed to adversity.
“Parents may be an important buffer against these broader structural inequalities, and thus working with parents may be one way to help protect children -- while we also work on policies to reduce the concentration of disadvantage in neighborhoods and the risk for exposure to violence in the community,” said co-author Alex Burt, PhD, of Michigan State University.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes over 157,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.
CREDIT: ADAPTED FROM ACS APPLIED OPTICAL MATERIALS 2024, DOI: 10.1021/ACSAOM.3C00419
Whether ultramarine, cerulean, Egyptian or cobalt, blue pigments have colored artworks for centuries. Now, seemingly out of the blue, scientists have discovered a new blue pigment that uses less cobalt but still maintains a brilliant shine. Though something like this might only happen once in a blue moon, the cobalt-doped barium aluminosilicate colorant described in ACS Applied Optical Materials withstands the high temperatures found in a kiln and provides a bright color to glazed tiles.
Many of the brilliant blue pigments — like those in antique Chinese porcelain or works by Claude Monet — make use of cobalt-based compounds, including the famous “cobalt blue.” Though the metal itself is toxic, in mineral form it has high chemical and thermal stability, and those properties make cobalt aluminate one of the only pigments suitable for high-temperature applications, including pottery glazes. Today, cobalt is used in lithium-ion batteries, and demand for the metal ore will likely increase as the need for battery power grows. As a result, scientists including Peng Jiang and colleagues are searching for alternative pigments that require fewer cobalt ions and still maintain a bright blue hue.
The team based their new pigment off a barium feldspar mineral (BaAl2Si2O8) that also features high temperature and chemical stability. Compounds containing barium, aluminum, silicon and cobalt were ground together, pressed into a sheet, then heated to above 2550 degrees Fahrenheit to form the pigment. Then the researchers mixed the powder into a ceramic glaze, sprayed it onto tiles and fired them to produce glazed pieces of pottery. The pigment was stable at temperatures up to 3200 degrees — well above the typical firing temperature of a pottery kiln — and only experienced slight color changes when exposed to either acidic or alkaline solutions, demonstrating the compound’s stability. Tiles sprayed with the pigmented glaze maintained a smooth, bright surface that deepened in color as the concentration of cobalt in the pigment increased. The researchers say that this new powder substantially reduces the amount of cobalt needed, resulting in a cheaper, easier-to-produce blue ceramic pigment.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Beijing Nova Program,the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Youth Teacher International Exchange & Growth Program, and the National Science Foundation.
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A technology originally designed for spraying crops with biological pest control products can be used in urban environments to reduce proliferation of insects that carry viruses harmful to humans, such as the mosquito Aedes aegypti, which transmits dengue, yellow fever, zika and chikungunya.
Developed by BirdView, a startup based in São Manuel (São Paulo state, Brazil), in collaboration with EMBRAPA Instrumentation – one of several decentralized units of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) – and with support by FAPESP’s Innovative Research in Small Business Program (PIPE), the solution was tested and is currently under the validation process of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The nuclear watchdog of the United Nations (UN) has developed a method for sterilizing mosquitoes by irradiation and is coordinating a technical cooperation program with countries interested in using the technology.
“We carried out tests to validate the technology by the International Atomic Energy Agency with Aedes and Glossina [popularly known as tsetse fly], which is responsible for the transmission of sleeping sickness. The preliminary results are very encouraging,” says Ricardo Machado, co-founder of the startup.
The test to validate the technology in the fight against Aedes in partnership with the IAEA was carried out in 2002 in Seibersdorf, Austria, where the laboratory of the technique developed by the agency for pest control is located. In the same year, the company carried out other tests in the Brazilian states of Paraná and Pernambuco.
“We also conducted a test in Florida in partnership with an agency responsible for the control of arboviruses in that US state,” says Machado.
More efficient technology
The technology, which the firm developed under the aegis of the FAPESP Research Program on Biodiversity Characterization, Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use (BIOTA), is a drone-mounted modular system that holds the insects in a special container and releases them in previously demarcated areas, minimizing damage and stress that might cause the death of the insects, changes in flight characteristics or reproduction capacity.
When used over farmland, the drone releases insects onto crops to combat agricultural pests that are their natural enemies. When used over urban areas, it releases sterile males of A. aegypti, which even when mating will not have offspring. Females of this species reproduce once in their entire lifetime. The solution will reduce local populations of A. aegypti, experts believe.
The method has been used for decades to control agricultural pests such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, the false moth, the New World worm and the tsetse fly.
A small drone has the capacity to release 17,000 insects per flight, which lasts 10 minutes and covers an area of 100,000 square meters. In this way, it is possible to release almost 300,000 insects per day, the engineer explains.
“Another limitation of the release of sterile mosquitoes by the terrestrial method is that it is restricted to public roads, not reaching foci of the insect. The drones allow the release in a homogeneous way and with low stress induced in the insect”, compares Machado.
According to him, the method of air-releasing sterile Aedes aegypti makes it possible to reduce 90% of the population and new cases of the disease in three to four weeks. In the case of land release, these rates are reached between three and four months.
“Drone release is much faster, it makes it possible to launch larger quantities of insects and in a more homogeneous way. This is reflected in more treated sites,” he says.
According to Machado, drones are low cost and easy to operate. In addition, they were designed to carry out the release of the insects in the cities in a decentralized manner, according to the surveillance strategies adopted by local health agents.
“The solution can also be used to sow seeds for the restoration of forests and the Wolbitos produced by Fiocruz [Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a federal agency for the development of health inputs, technologies and scientific research] in partnership with the Ministry of Health,” says Machado, referring to a program recently announced by the two institutions that aims to expand access in Brazil to mosquitoes with Wolbachia.
Already introduced in 12 countries, the technology consists of introducing a bacterium – called Wolbachia – into mosquitoes that prevents them from transmitting dengue and other viruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti.
PIPE Entrepreneur
BirdView was one of 21 startups that took part in the 25th edition of PIPE Entrepreneur. The technical validation and business results they obtained during the 12-week course were presented at an event held in December at FAPESP.
One of the main aims of PIPE Entrepreneur is to build closer ties between academia and the market. According to program coordinator Cátia Favale, the participating startups need to validate their projects with models that are attractive to the market. “We want to convert efforts into business ventures. It’s a win-win, boosting tax revenue, job creation, income, and economic and social development,” she said.
“PIPE Entrepreneur is considered one of the leading business training programs in São Paulo, with highly qualified coordinators, mentoring, and a sound methodology,” said AnapatrÃcia Morales Vilha, a member of FAPESP’s Research for Innovation Adjunct Panel.
About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.
