Featured Posts

To top

discovery Tag

14 Sep

Discovery of microplastics from water trapped on plant leaves

Although they have not been around for long, microplastics have found their way to almost every ecosystem on the planet. They have been discovered in the soil, in rivers, in our food and bottled water, and even in the human body. Recently, a team of researchers found, for the first time, microplastics in water trapped in plant leaf axils. Katarína Fogašová, Peter Manko, and Jozef Obona of the University of Prešov, Slovakia, initially set out to Eastern Slovakia to study the organisms living in the little water puddles forming in teasel leaf axils. Teasels of the genus Dipsacus have characteristic opposite leaves that grow on the stem above each other in several levels. As they clasp the stem, they form cup-like structures that collect...
Continue reading
12 Sep

A breakthrough discovery in carbon capture conversion for ethylene production

A team of researchers led by Meenesh Singh at University of Illinois Chicago has discovered a way to convert 100% of carbon dioxide captured from industrial exhaust into ethylene, a key building block for plastic products. Their findings are published in Cell Reports Physical Science. While researchers have been exploring the possibility of converting carbon dioxide to ethylene for more than a decade, the UIC team's approach is the first to achieve nearly 100% utilization of carbon dioxide to produce hydrocarbons. Their system uses electrolysis to transform captured carbon dioxide gas into high purity ethylene, with other carbon-based fuels and oxygen as byproducts. The process can convert up to 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide into 1 metric ton of ethylene, recycling almost all...
Continue reading