GLOBAL WARMING

Global Warming is a buzzword right now. The experts finally agree: it is happening. But, what does that really mean, and how will it affect our lives?

A Closer Look At Global Warming.
Global Warming is just what its name implies: a warming of the earth’s atmosphere. But, it’s more than warmer weather. The earth’s climate regulates everything worldwide: the oceans, the storms, the temperatures, the rain forests, even the deserts.

Right now the earth’s climate is rising unnaturally, thanks to the over-consumption of oil, gas and coal. The pollution made from burning these fossil fuels has left incredibly large amounts of carbon dioxide trapped in the earth’s atmosphere. This build-up of “greenhouse gasses” has thrown off the way nature is designed to control and regulate global temperatures. As the amount of these gasses increase, so do the earth’s temperatures.

What’s A Few Degrees Matter?
It may not seem like a big deal, but as temperatures rise (even by a degree or two), all over the world, places like Antarctica and the North Sea begin to experience melting of their ice caps and glaciers. As this polar ice melts, tides will slowly rise worldwide; eventually flooding places like London, Bangkok and New Orleans permanently. Places people now live and work will be lost to the seas forever.

But, that’s not all. Some of the world’s best farmland is located in many of the low-lying lands in danger of this global flooding. As the seas rise, these fertile soils will be swallowed by ocean water. In many places throughout the world, people will lose their only source of growing food.

Another important industry that will be at risk is the world’s fishing industry. As ocean waters rise, fish will leave areas where the people depend on them for earning a living, looking for colder waters. Many breeds will die when unable to adapt to the temperature changes.

In addition to food shortages, higher world temperatures will also cause an increase in many diseases only before seen in third-world nations in mass. Diseases such as malaria and TB may become commonplace in even the most industrialized countries as higher temperatures accelerate the breeding of the bacteria that causes these diseases.

It’s More Than Warmer Temperatures.
The dangers of a warming climate continue to accelerate as the temperature rises. Not just about warmer temperatures, global warming greatly affects weather patterns all over the world. As temperatures rise (even as little as one degree), storms become more violent and more unpredictable. Hurricanes have already begun to hit land with more force than years past. The trend will only worsen. The size of the world’s desserts will increase as land becomes drier. In places where it does rain, the storms will be heavier, and flooding commonplace. When a cold snap hits in the winter, it will be more severe, with larger snowfalls, than before.

All of this sounds bad and getting worse, but what can we do, right now, to lesson the effects global warming is having on our earth, and out lives. Here are a few things everyone can do right now that will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released (and trapped), into our atmosphere every day:

• Drive Sparingly. Walk when possible. Take public transportation, or car pool.
• Conserve energy. Turn the lights, computers, appliances and TV’s off when not in use. Buy only energy efficient appliances. Buy and use manual appliances, tools and toys whenever possible.
• Recycle everything. That doesn’t mean just your paper and plastic. Donate used clothes, and other working household items to someone else to use instead of purchasing a new one to cut down on dangerous gasses released from landfills.
• Plant a tree. It helps cut down the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and supplies the earth wit new stores of oxygen.

Wastewater Treatment Technology Tutorial

Wastewater Treatment Technology Tutorial

Introduction

Earthpace has developed this tutorial to guide users through the wastewater treatment process and to introduce users to current and emerging technologies for wastewater management.

Begin the tutorial by reading the introduction or by clicking on one of the blue titles in the image below to learn more about each wastewater treatment method. You may also use the links to the right to navigate.

Wastewater treatment refers to the process of removing pollutants from water previously employed for industrial, agricultural, or municipal uses. The techniques used to remove the pollutants present in wastewater can be broken into biological, chemical, physical, and energetic. These different techniques are applied through the many stages of wastewater treatment.

Primary treatment usually includes the removal of large solids from the wastewater via physical settling or filtration. The first step in primary treatment is screening.

Secondary treatment typically removes the smaller solids and particles remaining in the wastewater through fine filtration aided by the use of membranes or through the use of microbes, which utilize organics as an energy source. Energetic techniques may also be employed in tandem with biological techniques in the secondary phase to break up the size of particles thus increasing their surface area and rate of consumption by the microbes present. A common first step in the secondary treatment process is to send the waste to an aeration tank.

Tertiary treatment involves the disinfection of the wastewater through chemical or energetic means. Increasing the number of steps in a wastewater treatment process may insure higher quality of effluent; however employing additional technologies may incur increased costs of construction, operation, and maintenance.

Carbon Dioxid Tranformed Into Methanol

Scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have succeeded in unlocking the potential of carbon dioxide – a common greenhouse gas – by converting it into a more useful product.

In the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, the IBN researchers report that by using organocatalysts, they activated carbon dioxide in a mild and non-toxic process to produce methanol, a widely used industrial feedstock and clean-burning biofuel.

Organocatalysts are catalysts that are comprised of non-metallic elements found in organic compounds. NHCs such as IMes (1,3-bis-(2,4,6 trimethylphenyl)imidazolylidene) are a form of organocatalysts that are stable and easily stored. They do not contain toxic heavy metals and can be produced easily without high costs.

The scientists made carbon dioxide react by using N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), a novel organocatalyst. In contrast to heavy metal catalysts that contain toxic and unstable components, NHCs are stable, even in the presence of oxygen. Hence, the reaction with NHCs and carbon dioxide can take place under mild conditions in dry air.

The IBN scientists showed that only a small amount of NHC is required to induce carbon dioxide activity in a reaction. "NHCs have shown tremendous potential for activating and fixing carbon dioxide. Our work can contribute towards transforming excess carbon dioxide in the environment into useful products such as methanol," said Siti Nurhanna Riduan, IBN Senior Lab Officer, who is also pursuing her Ph.D. under the Scientific Staff Development Award at IBN, one of the research institutes of Singapore's A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research).

Hydrosilane, a combination of silica and hydrogen, is added to the NHC-activated carbon dioxide, and the product of this reaction is transformed into methanol by adding water through hydrolysis.

Yugen Zhang, Ph.D., IBN Team Leader and Principal Research Scientist, explained, "Hydrosilane provides hydrogen, which bonds with carbon dioxide in a reduction reaction. This carbon dioxide reduction is efficiently catalyzed by NHCs even at room temperature. Methanol can be easily obtained from the product of the carbon dioxide reaction. Our previous research on NHCs has demonstrated their multiple applications as powerful antioxidants to fight degenerative diseases, and as effective catalysts to transform sugars into an alternative energy source. We have now shown that NHCs can also be applied successfully to the conversion of carbon dioxide into methanol, helping to unleash the potential of this highly abundant gas."

Previous attempts to reduce carbon dioxide to more useful products have required more energy input and a much longer reaction time. They also require transition metal catalysts, which are both unstable in oxygen and expensive. Ongoing research at IBN aims to find cheap alternatives for the hydrosilane reagent so that the production of methanol can be even more cost-effective for mass industrial production.

"At IBN, we are innovating effective methods of generating clean energy using green chemistry and nanotechnology. In the face of environmental pollution, global warming and increasing demands on diminishing fossil fuel resources, we hope to provide a viable alternative energy option for industry, and effective sequestration and conversion of carbon dioxide," said IBN Executive Director. Jackie Y. Ying, Ph.D.