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Recycling Cigarette Butts into Asphalt

Posted on March 12, 2024March 12, 2024 by dishanth

Cigarette butts are the most littered item worldwide. Over 4.5 trillion cigarette butts pollute our environment every year. They do not easily biodegrade and are full of chemicals that are toxic to the wildlife that may ingest them. They are small individually, but they add up to a big problem. A waste management company in Bratislava, Slovakia, has found a new way of recycling cigarette butts, and that is by transforming cigarette butts into asphalt.

The environmental effect of cigarettes

More than 6 trillion cigarettes are smoked yearly around the world. You are probably familiar with how cigarettes cause air pollution due to the burning of tobacco, which releases harmful chemicals into the air. But did you know the butts from cigarettes are the most common form of personal litter in the world?

In the world total, cigarette butts make up more than one-third of litter. While cigarette butts may look like cotton, they are made of plastic fibers which are tightly packed together. And because they are made from man-made materials, they won’t organically break down into the environment.

Moreover, because cigarette butts are made of toxic chemicals when they are disposed of improperly, these chemicals (such as nicotine, lead, cadmium, and arsenic) will leach into the environment. The toxic chemicals can find their way into rivers, lakes, and oceans, harming aquatic life and contaminating water sources. There is also a risk of wildlife mistaking cigarette butts for food, accidentally injesting them.

Transforming cigarette butts into asphalt

A municipal waste management company in Bratislava, Slovakia, is pioneering a new way of recycling cigarette butts. At the end of 2023, the company trialed special containers designed to collect standard cigarette filters and those found in modern heated tobacco devices like vapes. And placed them around the city.

In collaboration with companies SPAK-EKO and EcoButt, the Bratislava City Council will be recycling cigarette butts to use the discarded materials to create asphalt for roads. Once the filters have been collected from the specialized bins, they will undergo a cleaning process to remove toxins and any residual tobacco. The cleaned filters are composed of cellulose acetate from the filters, which are then transformed into fine fibers. The fibers are mixed with traditional asphalt materials, which help with the asphalt’s durability and longevity.

The final product can be used just like conventional asphalt for creating new roads or repairing existing ones.

This isn’t the first time Slovakia is recycling cigarette butts into asphalt to be used on their roads. Their first cigarette filter road is located in Ziar and Hronom and was the first in the world.

With this program, cities in Slovakia can encourage people not only to stop throwing their cigarette butts on the ground, where they will do harm to the environment. But this project can also show people how they can participate in sustainable urban development.

Recycling cigarette butts into asphalt can also help reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry. The production of asphalt involves heating and mixing aggregates with bitumen, a petroleum-based binder. This process releases greenhouse gases and other air pollutants, contributing to air quality issues and climate change.

Rainwater runoff from asphalt surfaces can carry pollutants, such as oil, heavy metals, and chemicals from vehicle exhaust, into waterways, potentially contaminating aquatic ecosystems. Recycling cigarette butts in the asphalt may help absorb and reduce many of these environmental harms and could change how we construct our roads.

Cigarettes might not be disappearing in the very near future, but we can find ways to make them less damaging to our planet and help cities be a little cleaner. Providing users with these specialized cigarette butt bins is one way to keep cigarette butts off the ground and out of our waters. And repurposing these butts is one way we can support a circular model and reuse and repurpose our resources.

Slovakia has a very innovative plan, and we hope it catches on around the world.

Source Happy Eco News

Underground Hydrogen Touted As ‘Significant’ Clean Energy Resource In First U.S. Hearing

Posted on March 1, 2024March 1, 2024 by dishanth

The Senate held the first congressional hearing on geologic hydrogen, a promising new form of clean energy generated naturally underground, that’s attracted growing interest and investment over the past year.

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, chaired by West Virginia’s Sen. Joe Manchin, heard testimony on Wednesday from the Energy Department’s advanced research unit, the U.S. Geological Survey and Pete Johnson, CEO of Koloma, the best-funded startup in the geologic hydrogen space. They concurred that more research is needed to identify the most abundant, promising sites and to develop techniques to amplify the natural production process, but were upbeat about the outlook.

“The potential for geologic hydrogen represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about hydrogen as an energy source,” Evelyn Wang, director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy told Senators. “This new source of hydrogen could lower energy costs and increase our nation’s energy security and supply chains.”

Federal scientists have begun working with universities and energy companies to find ways to map and locate potentially large pockets of hydrogen as current estimates are inadequate, said the Geological Survey’s Geoffrey Ellis. “The estimated in-place global geologic hydrogen resource ranges from 1000s to potentially billions of megatons,” he told the committee. “Given our understanding of other geologic resources, the vast majority of the in-place hydrogen is likely to be in accumulations that are either too far offshore or too small to ever be economically recovered. However, if even a small fraction of this amount could be recovered that would constitute a significant resource.”

Hydrogen is already heavily used in industry, including at oil refineries, chemical plants and as a key ingredient in ammonia for fertilizer. But nearly all of it is made by extracting hydrogen from natural gas, a dirty process that emits large amounts of carbon dioxide. Like green hydrogen — a new clean form of the element made from water and electricity, ideally from renewable power — the geologic variety is carbon-free. Scientists believe it’s generated in underground pockets of iron-rich rock in warm, moist conditions that are extremely common. Uniquely, it’s an energy source that’s just sitting there, not one that needs to be created.

“All other forms of hydrogen require more energy to produce than the hydrogen itself holds,” Koloma’s Johnson said. “This is incredibly clean energy. In multiple third-party lifecycle analyses and peer-reviewed journal articles, geologic hydrogen has been found to have a very low carbon footprint. In addition, geologic hydrogen will result in lower land use and lower water consumption than any other form of hydrogen.”

Johnson, Wang and Ellis also noted that drilling or mining for hydrogen leverages techniques used by the oil and gas industry. It’s also likely to aid domestic ammonia production.

“Hydrogen is a great feedstock and it’s used to create ammonia for fertilizer,” said Wang. “If we could really stimulate and extract this hydrogen and produce very large quantities at very low cost I think this could have significant implications to help and support farmers.”

Johnson provided no details about when Denver-based Koloma, which has raised over $300 million from investors including Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and Amazon, would begin commercial extraction of hydrogen but is cautiously optimistic.

“This will take time, money and effort to figure out. Nobody has all the answers today,” he told the committee. “The early data looks promising and I believe that geologic hydrogen can play a very large role as we decarbonize the U.S. energy economy.”

Source Forbes

Aloe Vera Insect Repellants from Aloe Vera Peel Waste

Posted on November 30, 2023 by dishanth

Aloe vera is a succulent plant from the genus Aloe and is grown in various tropical, semi-tropical, and arid regions around the world. China, the U.S.A., Mexico, Australia and some Latin American countries are the major producers and exporters of aloe products. Aloes produce two substances: the gel, which is the clear, jelly-like substance found in the inner part and the aloe latex, which comes from just under the plant’s skin and is yellow in colour.

Because of these properties, aloe vera has been used for a variety of reasons, including treating wounds and skin problems or promoting healthy digestion. It’s known for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antiviral properties, which make it useful for treating burns, sunburns, and minor abrasions. Aloe vera gel can also help soothe and moisturize the skin. Aloe vera is also a common ingredient in skin care products, shampoos and conditioners.

While the inner parts of the aloe vera plant are in high demand, the peels are thrown away as agricultural waste. It is said that millions of tons of aloe vera peels get thrown away every year. The agricultural waste is used in the creation of biomass, which can improve the soil quality at aloe farms. While it is good that they are not being thrown into the landfill, agricultural waste does have some environmental consequences. For example, after some time, it can release methane and other greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change.

Scientists from the American Chemical Society have found another alternative for the aloe vera peels, which can act as a more sustainable solution. They have found that the peels can ward off bugs and can act as a natural insecticide for crops. The aloe vera insect repellant discovery was made at an aloe vera production centre, where they noticed that insects were leaving the aloe vera plants alone but attacking other plant varieties, they had discovered natural aloe vera insect repellants.

To analyze how and why aloe vera insect repellants work, the team from the American Chemical Society dried out the peels in the dark at room temperature by blowing air over them. They then produced various extracts from the peels. The researchers found that in the hexane extract (used to extract edible oils from seeds and vegetables) contained octacosane. Octacosane is a compound with known mosquitocidal properties.

The researchers identified that there were over 20 compounds in aloe vera insect repellants that had antibacterial, antifungal or other potential health benefits. Additionally, they found six compounds within the peels that are known to have insecticidal properties. Best of all, they also concluded that the compounds were not toxic, meaning there are no safety concerns in using aloe-peel-based insecticides in crops.

The researchers still have to test how these aloe peel insecticides could work against agricultural pests. They hope that developing a natural pesticide could help farmers in areas where insects can be a major threat, including regions of Africa, the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, and the maize and millet fields in India. The researchers are also testing to see if the aloe vera peels also have anti-mosquito and anti-tick properties, which could eventually be used to develop a natural aloe vera insect repellant for consumer use.

This is an important discovery to help make aloe vera production and even other crop production more sustainable. If the researchers can develop this into a natural insecticide, it could help us move away from harmful pesticides and make farming less harmful to the environment. Furthermore, this might also be the beginning of what we can do with other plant peels and waste and how we can utilize them for other purposes instead of throwing them away.

Source Happy Eco News

Using Light to Convert Lignin into Sustainable Plastic

Posted on February 24, 2023 by dishanth

Its biochemical cousin cellulose, a byproduct of the paper and wood milling industry, is well known to many people. But, according to industry analysts, the same procedures generate 50 million tons of lignin each year. 98% of the inky liquid is burnt to create electricity once it has been distilled.

Researchers have been looking for more effective and sustainable methods to turn this naturally occurring polymer into a cleaner and greener building block for use in developing next-generation materials.

According to a new study published in the journal ACS Central Science, scientists at Boston College have created a method for turning lignin into eco-friendly plastics using light.

The scientists then transformed the oligomers into eco-friendly plastics by reacting with crosslinkers, a molecular glue, according to the study. The oligomers produced by the catalyst have distinct chemical structures, allowing the plastics produced in this way to be chemically broken down back into the oligomers and reformed from the oligomers and the crosslinker.

The research advances a viable strategy for the circular plastic economy, a system of waste-free polymer production and reuse, according to the study co-author Dunwei Wang, the Margaret A. and Thomas A. Vanderslice Chair in Chemistry at Boston College.

Wang and Niu, both interested in creating sustainable materials, chose the project based on Wang’s experience in utilizing photocatalysis to induce chemical transformations and Niu’s work of creating recyclable polymers.

Wang added, “The pleasant surprise was the level of controls we were able to exert in decomposing lignin, which is a biopolymer that is notorious for its difficulty to break down. Such a level of control paves the way for downstream applications.”

The study team wants to improve the novel technique for turning lignin into environmentally sustainable plastics that are easy to recycle chemically.

Graduate students Gavin Giardino and Hongyang Wang, along with former post-doctoral researchers Rong Chen and Cangjie Yang, are also co-authors of the study with Niu and Wang.

Source AZoMaterial