Tag: environmental science

CHESS receives $20M from NSF for new X-ray beamline

CHESS receives $20M from NSF for new X-ray beamline

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) nearly $20 million to build a new precision X-ray beamline for research on biological and environmental systems.

The X-rays for Life, Environmental, Agriculture and Plant sciences (XLEAP) beamline will be an important resource for the U.S. scientific community, filling a need for X-ray fluorescence-based technology supporting biological and biogeochemical research.

“We are thrilled to receive this funding from the NSF for the XLEAP beamline,” said Joel Brock, CHESS director. “This investment is not only a significant step forward for CHESS but also highlights the importance of advancing precision X-ray studies in the realm of agriculture, biology, and environmental sciences.

“XLEAP will be a game-changer, allowing researchers to explore live soil and plant systems under controlled growth conditions, paving the way for groundbreaking discoveries.”

Scientists at CHESS hope to develop a better understanding of the carbon cycle, which could lead to the development of safer and more nutritious crops.

“This $20 million federal investment will supercharge Cornell’s cutting-edge CHESS Lab and bring us to the next frontier of understanding the elemental and microscopic details of organisms.” said Senator Schumer. “When CHESS faced major cuts in federal support 10 years ago, I fought tooth and nail to ensure its pioneering research and hundreds of good-paying jobs would remain here in Upstate New York, and now this latest boost in federal investment shows that CHESS is top of its class not just in America, but the world.

“The addition of the new XLEAP beamline could not be in better hands at CHESS,” Schumer said, “and is just the latest in showing how Ithaca is leading the way in making Upstate NY a global leader in research and technology.”

“XLEAP is a perfect example of enabling technology that allows for fundamental research that creates knowledge that can be put to use addressing societal challenges,” said Susan Marqusee, NSF assistant director for biological sciences. “NSF is proud to support this key infrastructure that holds the potential to help advance the bioeconomy, build a resilient planet, and more.”

“X-rays are a really powerful tool for visualizing the chemical composition of complex structures like soils and plants,” said Louisa Smieska, XLEAP beamline scientist. “XLEAP is special because it will allow researchers to study live soil and plant systems in controlled growth conditions, not only in a steady state, but when we expose those systems to changes, such as the nutrients available, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, or adding nanoparticles, fungi, bacteria, or microplastics.”

By combining state-of-the-art technology and expertise at CHESS with other world-class research facilities at Cornell, XLEAP will aid in the development of tools suited to answer questions of fundamental biology, biomedical sciences, geology, environmental science, materials science, and cultural heritage.

Read more on the CHESS website

Image: School of Integrate Plant Science (SIPS) research associate Ju-Chen Chia and XLEAP Beamline Scientist Louisa Smieska examine plants in the SIPS growth chambers

Tender X-rays show how one of nature’s strongest bonds breaks

Tender X-rays show how one of nature’s strongest bonds breaks

Short flashes of an unusual kind of X-ray light at SwissFEL and SLS bring scientists closer to developing better catalysts to transform the greenhouse gas methane into a less harmful chemical. The result, published in the journal Science, reveals for the first time how carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes break and how the catalyst works in this reaction.

Methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is being released into the atmosphere at an increasing rate by livestock farming as well as the continuing unfreezing of permafrost. Transforming methane and longer-chain alkanes into less harmful and in fact useful chemicals would remove the associated threats, and in turn make available a huge feedstock for the chemical industry. However, transforming methane necessitates as a first step the breaking of a C-H bond, one of the strongest chemical linkages in nature.

Forty years ago, molecular metal catalysts were discovered that can easily split C-H bonds. The only thing found to be necessary was a short flash of visible light to “switch on” the catalyst and – bafflingly – the strong C-H bonds of alkanes passing nearby were easily broken almost without using any energy. Despite the importance of this so-called C-H activation reaction, it has remained unknown how that catalyst performs this function. Now, experiments at Swiss FEL and SLS have enabled a research team led by scientists at Uppsala University to directly watch the catalyst at work and reveal how it breaks the C-H bonds.

Read more on the PSI website

Image: An X-ray flash illuminates a molecule

Credit: University of Uppsala / Raphael Jay

The problems with coal ash start smaller than anyone thought

The problems with coal ash start smaller than anyone thought

How well toxic elements leach out of coal ash depends on the ash’s nanoscale composition

Everyone knows that burning coal causes air pollution that is harmful to the climate and human health. But the ash left over can often be harmful as well.

For example, Duke Energy long stored a liquified form of coal ash in 36 large ponds across the Carolinas. That all changed in 2014, when a spill at its Dan River site released 27 million gallons of ash pond water into the local environment. The incident raised concerns about the dangers associated with even trace amounts of toxic elements like arsenic and selenium in the ash. Little was known, however, about just how much of these hazardous materials were present in the ash water or how easily they could contaminate the surrounding environment.

Fears of future spills and seepage caused Duke Energy to agree to pay $1.1 billion to decommission most of its coal ash ponds over the coming years. Meanwhile, researchers are working on better ways of putting the ash to use, such as recycling it to recover valuable rare earth elements or incorporating it into building materials such as concrete. But to put any potential solution into action, researchers still must know which sources of coal ash pose a hazardous risk due to its chemical makeup — a question that scientists still struggle to answer.

In a new paper published June 6 in the journal Environmental Science: Nano, researchers at Duke University have discovered that these answers may remain elusive because nobody is thinking small enough. Using one of the newest, most advanced synchrotron light sources in the world — the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory — the authors show that, at least for selenium and arsenic, the amount of toxic elements able to escape from coal ash depends largely on their nanoscale structures.

Read more on the BNL website

Image: Leftover sludge from the 2008 coal ash spill at the Kingston TVA power plant. New research indicates that the nanoscale structure of the coal ash plays a large part in whether or not toxic chemicals can leach into the environment from such events