Tag: environment

Science supports species survival by tackling contaminants and developing ingenious approaches

Science supports species survival by tackling contaminants and developing ingenious approaches

The education theme of National Science Week is Species Survival, and how science can help ensure that different species survive and thrive in an ever-changing world.

ANSTO’s environment research and technology group focuses on those things that impact the environment, whether that is climate, the availability of water resources or the impact of contaminants.All of these contributing factors have an effect on species survival. If an animal is endangered, it may be even more critical.

At ANSTO we use highly sensitive nuclear and isotopic techniques to characterise the behaviour of contaminants in the environment. 

How do they move through the water, ground and air to affect living organisms, ecosystems and humans? Are they natural or artificial concentrations, are they toxic or radioactive?

These are complex questions, but science is a powerful tool.

 The answers can be used to improve management strategies for mitigating pollution, the degradation of the atmosphere, changes to sub-surface environments and the biosphere. 

They have the potential to improve public health and make human activities more sustainable on a local, regional and global scale.

Research at ANSTO is partly guided by the emergence of contaminant issues in Australia and internationally.   

There are numerous examples of research in this area. 

Read more on ANSTO website

World leader in single-atom catalysts relies on CLS to drive advances in field

World leader in single-atom catalysts relies on CLS to drive advances in field

There is a high level of interest, even excitement, among chemists and materials scientists about the potential of single-atom catalysts (SACs) but their development relies on very specialized tools available only at synchrotrons like the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).

“This is a really exciting research area,” said Dr. Peng Zhang, professor of chemistry and of biomedical engineering at Dalhousie University, and a long-time CLS user.

Catalysts are nanoparticles coated with materials – often expensive metals like platinum, palladium and gold – that speed up chemical reactions. A significant drawback for conventional catalysts is that only a small percentage of the catalytic material is used in the chemical reaction, making them inefficient and wasteful, explained Zhang.

With growing demand for clean and sustainable energy, using SACs in energy systems can help the environment and save money. SACs have benefits like making reactions more efficient, using less rare metals, and improving the performance of devices like fuel cells and batteries. They can also help store renewable energy from sources like the sun and wind, making it more reliable.

In the case of automotive catalytic converters, which are designed to convert exhaust emissions into less toxic pollutants, Zhang said less than half of the platinum atoms in the catalyst are available for the necessary chemical reaction.

The goal of SAC research is to control the surface atomic structure of catalysts with individual atoms of the catalytic material in a matrix of less-expensive material, ensuring all of the material is available for the reaction. “When you design the catalyst to have a single-atom structure, you can significantly improve their activity and performance in the catalytic application,” said Zhang.

The challenges of working at the level of a single atom are significant, he admitted, but that is where the CLS comes in.

“If you think about single-atom catalysts, they’re so small that you need a special research tool to uncover their structure,” to understand how the atoms are arranged and what atoms are present. “Even with the most powerful electron microscope, you can probably see an individual atom, but if you’re using synchrotron technology, you can get a resolution 100 times smaller.”

Read more on CLS website

ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron Goes Solar for a Greener Future

ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron Goes Solar for a Greener Future

More than 3,200 solar panels have been installed across the rooftops of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) Australian Synchrotron in Clayton, offsetting enough power to light up the whole MCG for more than five years.

The panels, covering an area of nearly 6,600m², including the large and iconic circular roof of the main building that hosts the powerful particle accelerator, will save ANSTO over two million kWh per year while also reducing its carbon footprint by over 1,680 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Director for ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron, Professor Michael James said the benefit of driving down operating costs is paralleled by ANSTO’s ongoing commitment to a greener future.

“This investment in renewable technology is just one way we can meet our own sustainability goals while also contributing to a cleaner and greener environment,” Prof. James said.

“Electricity is one of our largest operating costs, so our new solar plant will deliver substantial savings and also act as a buffer against increasing energy overheads in the future.

“The reduction in our carbon footprint is enough to offset the running of 367 family-sized cars each year.”

The installation of a 1,668 kWh system and inverter will supply part of the Australian Synchrotron’s total energy requirements and is expected to deliver savings of around $2 million over a five-year period to 2029.

“The saved running costs will be used to support operations as well as the expansion of our research capabilities and facilities,” Prof. James said.

“Going solar was a no-brainer. The size of our rooftops, paired with the ample, uninterrupted exposure to sunlight at our location within the Monash precinct, was a major incentive for us to become more energy efficient.

“While our science facility operates 24 hours per day, during daylight hours, the new solar plant provides a cyclical way to harness the power of light – from the sun to help power our facilities, that in turn, allows us to generate brilliant beams of synchrotron light that are more than a million times brighter than the light from the sun. 

“Some of those brilliant beams of synchrotron light are even used to undertake research into the next generation of solar cell technology.”

The solar panel installation, completed over a five-month period, covers the rooftops of the main Australian Synchrotron building, the Australian Synchrotron Guesthouse, and the Environmentally Controlled Storage Facility.

Read more on ANSTO website

Synthesised a new catalyst with key properties to solve environmental issues

Synthesised a new catalyst with key properties to solve environmental issues

A research led by the ITQ-CSIC-UPV has discovered a new catalyst enabling hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to methane with advantages not seen until now. This new catalyst, whose structure and mechanism have been understood by synergistically exploiting different ALBA Synchrotron techniques, can be used for methane (natural syngas) production, that is considered as a promising energy carrier for hydrogen storage.

Linear economy has proven to be unsustainable in the long run due to its ineffective use of natural resources that leads to a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions and waste generation. An alternative model, the so-called circular economy is based on an efficient production cycle that focuses on minimising waste and better recycling and seems to be key to find solutions for the climate crisis. One process that can be essential in this challenge is carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration and usage, that is, transform atmospheric or produced carbon dioxide into energy carriers or platform molecules of the chemical industry.

An international collaboration between the Instituto de Tecnología Química – a join research center between Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and Universitat Politècnica de València (ITQ-CSIC-UPV), SOLEIL Synchrotron, Universidad de Cádiz, and ALBA Synchrotron permitted to synthesize a new catalyst able to hydrogenate carbon dioxide to methane with significant improvements in comparison to existing analogues. Its main advantage is that it possesses a much higher activity and so the reaction temperature can be lowered from usual 270-400ºC to only 180ºC, with an excellent long-term stability. Furthermore, this catalyst is able to operate under intermittent power supply conditions, which couples very well with electricity production systems based on renewable energies. Moreover, its synthetic procedure itself is ecofriendly, making it an even greater option in environmental issues.

This new catalyst can be used for methane (natural syngas) production, that is considered as a promising energy carrier for hydrogen storage.

The new solid catalyst was designed and synthesized in the ITQ (CSIC-UPV) by a mild, green hydrothermal synthesis procedure resulting in a material that contains interstitial carbon atoms doped in the ruthenium (Ru) oxide crystal lattice, enabling the stabilization of Ru cations in a low oxidation state with the formation of a none yet reported ruthenium oxy-carbonate phase.

Read more on ALBA website

ALBA initiates new beamline

ALBA initiates new beamline

3Sbar (Surface Structure and Spectroscopy at 1 bar) is the name of the next ALBA beamline that will be extremely useful to provide answers to environment protection. 3Sbar is a unique instrument that will provide unprecedented insight on the understanding of fundamental processes in catalytic reactions. The project, funded by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan within the framework of the NextGenerationEU, will enter operation in 2026.

The 3Sbar project has been chosen as ALBA 14th beamline. It will allow simultaneous photoemission experiments at 1 bar gas pressures and surface X ray diffraction. The electronic and atomic structures will be both probed during surface chemical reactions and catalytic operando reactions. The products of the reactions will also be analysed by gas phase photoemission.

This new beamline will be key to understand the correlation between chemical reactions and structural changes at atmospheric pressures, which represents a big step ahead for fundamental research in surface chemistry and catalysis. It will allow to get a deep insight in the basic processes determining the efficiencies of catalysts under industrial operating pressures.

3Sbar will be extremely useful to provide answers to environmental protection, challenges such as CO2 reduction, the wastewater treatment, development of environmentally friendly industrial catalytic processes or recycling of greenhouse gases.

The beamline, adaptable to many different sample environments, will serve a wide community of users at a national and international level, from academy and industrial worlds.

Its estimated cost is 9 million euros, which have been granted by the Ministry of Science and Innovation through the European Recovery and Resilience Facility within the NextGenerationEU Programme. It covers the construction and staff positions needed for designing and operating this new beamline. Two new job positions are open now. The detailed design of the beamline starts now, the construction is expected to finish in 2025 and the instrument will be in operation by 2026.

Read more on the ALBA website

Helping to protect California farms from drought

Helping to protect California farms from drought

Researchers used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to look at where carbon ends up in soil and are contributing to an effort to mitigate the effects of drought for California farmers.

Samantha Ying and Michael Schaefer, both from the Department of Environmental Sciences at University of California (UC) Riverside, are part of a team set on untangling the mystery of a practice upon which farmers have relied for centuries to reduce water use—cover crops. Cover crops are an ancient practice whereby a crop is planted for the sole purpose of fertilizing the soil, not for consumption. It is known that increased organic carbon in soil resulting from the use of cover crops “turns the soil into a sponge that holds water,” explained Ying. “But how does this work? We really don’t know what’s happening to the carbon and soil.”

>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: Researcher Samantha Ying loading samples at our SGM beamline.

Plant roots police toxic pollutants

Plant roots police toxic pollutants

X-ray studies reveal details of how P. juliflora shrub roots scavenge and immobilize arsenic from toxic mine tailings.

Working in collaboration with scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, researchers at the University of Arizona have identified details of how certain plants scavenge and accumulate pollutants in contaminated soil. Their work revealed that plant roots effectively “lock up” toxic arsenic found loose in mine tailings—piles of crushed rock, fluid, and soil left behind after the extraction of minerals and metals. The research shows that this strategy of using plants to stabilize pollutants, called phytostabilization, could even be used in arid areas where plants require more watering, because the plant root activity alters the pollutants to forms that are unlikely to leach into groundwater.

The Arizona based researchers were particularly concerned with exploring phytostabilization strategies for mining regions in the southwestern U.S., where tailings can contain high levels of arsenic, a contaminant that has toxic effects on humans and animals. In the arid environment with low levels of vegetation, wind and water erosion can carry arsenic and other metal pollutants to neighboring communities.

>Read more on the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) website

Image: Scientists from the University of Arizona collect plant samples from the mine tailings at the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter Superfund site in central Arizona. X-ray studies at Brookhaven Lab helped reveal how these plants’ roots lock up toxic forms of arsenic in the soil.
Credit: Jon Chorover

SESAME light source brings second beamline into service

SESAME light source brings second beamline into service

Allan, Jordan, 30 April 2018. At 11:21 pm local time (GMT +3) scientists at the SESAME light source brought the laboratory’s infrared (IR) spectromicroscopy beamline into service for the first time.

This beamline is a completely new beamline. It was designed and built in collaboration with the French Soleil Synchrotron. It is SESAME’s second operational beamline, and it joins an X-ray beamline that saw first light on 23 November 2017. The addition of the IR beamline will enable the application of infrared microspectroscopy and imaging in a wide range of fields, including surface and materials science (e.g. characterization of new nanomaterials for solar cell fabrication and for drug delivery mechanisms), biochemistry, archaeology, geology, cell biology, biomedical diagnostics and environmental science (e.g. air and water pollution)

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment,” said Gihan Kamel, SESAME’s IR beamline scientist. “It’s very satisfying to see light in the beamline, and to be able to start doing research here that we previously had to travel to Europe to carry out.”

In preparation for the SESAME research programme, a number of thematic schools are being held across the region in a collaboration involving SESAME and European partners including the European Union through its Open SESAME project. One of these was held at SESAME earlier this month, covering science on the IR beamline. Students came from across the region and learned techniques ranging from sample preparation to data analysis.

“The infrared beamline has a mouth-watering research programme lined up,” said SESAME Scientific Director Giorgio Paolucci, “and it is great to see so many young people from across the region preparing to embark on careers in science.”

>Read more on the SESAME website

Gold protein clusters could be used as environmental and health detectors

Gold protein clusters could be used as environmental and health detectors

Peng Zhang and his collaborators study remarkable, tiny self-assembling clusters of gold and protein that glow a bold red. And they’re useful: protein-gold nanoclusters could be used to detect harmful metals in water or to identify cancer cells in the body.
“These structures are very exciting but are very, very hard to study. We tried many different tools, but none worked,” says Zhang, a Dalhousie University professor.

Peng Zhang and his collaborators study remarkable, tiny self-assembling clusters of gold and protein that glow a bold red. And they’re useful: protein-gold nanoclusters could be used to detect harmful metals in water or to identify cancer cells in the body.

“These structures are very exciting but are very, very hard to study. We tried many different tools, but none worked,” says Zhang, a Dalhousie University professor.

>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website

Image: The protein-gold structure. The protein, which both builds and holds in place the gold cluster, is shown in grey.

Cooking oil and clouds

Cooking oil and clouds

The complex behaviour of atmospheric aerosols has implications for climate change researc

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the increase in atmospheric aerosols and clouds since pre-Industrial times is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate change. Aerosol emissions from cooking are not currently included in European emission figures, yet recent research1 suggests that they contribute nearly 10% of human-related emissions of small particulate matter (PM2.5) in the UK. Now research carried out at Diamond, MAX-lab in Sweden, the University of Bath and the University of Reading published in Nature Communications has demonstrated that atmospheric aerosols can form complex 3D structures, with important implications for their role in climate change.

The work is a collaboration between the atmospheric scientist Dr Christian Pfrang and the biophysical chemist Dr Adam Squires.

>Read more on the diamond website or the MAX-IV website

Image: A levitated droplet at MAX-lab.

Researchers explore ways to remove antibiotics polluting lakes and rivers

Researchers explore ways to remove antibiotics polluting lakes and rivers

Pre-treated barley straw is showing promise as an environmentally-friendly material.

Pre-treated barley straw could be used to help soak up certain types of antibiotics polluting waterways. Pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, are an increasingly common pollutant in water systems, says Catherine Hui Niu, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.

After pharmaceuticals are used in humans and animals, traces are excreted and end up in sewage and, from there, into the environment. Their presence in waterways has raised concerns about potential risks to human health and ecosystems. To date there has been no effective way to remove them from water sources.

There are some materials that attract pharmaceutical pollutants to them in a process called adsorption, and could hypothetically be used to help remove them from water, says Niu. But their adsorption capacities need to be enhanced to make them useful for large scale clean-up efforts.

>Read More

Improving the treatment of industrial waste

Improving the treatment of industrial waste

Research uncovers the mechanism of memory effect of lamellar double hydroxides (LDH).

Synthetic dyes are in constant use in a wide variety of industries, from textile to cosmetics. Both the production and use of these substances can lead to environmental problems if they are not properly degraded or removed from industrial effluents. Among the many physical, chemical or biological processes that can be used for the treatment of such wastes, the adsorption processes are noteworthy for combining low cost and high removal rates.

R. M. M. Santos et al. [1] used the LNLS facilities to investigate the properties of lamellar double hydroxides (LDH), a family of anionic clays with high adsorption capacity, for the removal of synthetic dyes.

>Read More

Researchers develop technique to reuse carbon dioxide and methane, slowing climate change

Researchers develop technique to reuse carbon dioxide and methane, slowing climate change

Reusing carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane waste emissions from industrial sources is closer to reality.

And this  thanks to recent findings from a project conducted at the Canadian Light Source and the University of Saskatchewan. CO2 and methane are the most significant greenhouse gases resulting from human activity, says Dr. Hui Wang, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.

Capturing CO2 and methane emissions from industrial sources and reusing them could reduce the threat on the world’s ecosystem by slowing climate change, says Dr. Wang, the principal researcher of a paper published in Catalyst Today.

CO2 and methane can be triggered to undergo chemical reactions with each other to create synthesis gas or syngas. Syngas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used to synthesize a variety of liquid fuels or ammonia.

This reaction between CO2 and methane, also called ‘dry reforming of methane’, has not been fully scaled-up for commercial use due to lack of an inexpensive and industrially viable catalyst. Catalysts are used to speed up chemical reactions.

>Read More