A Heavy Metal Filter with a Sustainability Twofer

ORIGINAL: Clean Technica

Just in time for the final installment of the Twilight vampire saga, a team of researchers from the University of Delhi is developing a filter made of garlic and onion, to clean up arsenic, cadmium, iron, lead, mercury, and tin. The process could be used to treat industrial effluent at factories, and it could also join the growing bioremediation toolkit for cleaning up polluted sites. As for its application as a discouragement to vampires, that looks fairly promising, though apparently some vampires harbor more disaffection for garlic than others.

Image (cropped): Garlic by photofarmer

Researchers are already beginning to look into food-related substances like lactate, bananas and vitamin B12 as a sustainable means of neutralizing toxic substances in soil, also known as “green remediation.”

Green remediation presents a marked improvement over conventional “remediation,” which used to involve either capping a site and letting the contaminants fester under the cap, or digging out tons of contaminated soil and trucking it to a landfill where it would also fester.

The Delhi University process is of particular interest because it involves a double dose of re-use.

The filter itself consists of waste biomass — namely, the leftovers from processing garlic and onions at food canneries. The biomass absorbs as much contaminants as it can handle, and then nitric acid is applied to separate the metals into another vessel. The filter can then be reused all over again.

The process depends on achieving an efficient pH of 5, and so far the researchers have found that this can be achieved under a relatively low temperature of 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

Using food production waste to make a reusable filter is good enough. To ice the cake, once the filter has outlived its usefulness as a contaminant-trapper, it can be slipped into the food waste stream as feedstock for biofuel refineries.

Commercial scale food waste biofuel is still in the development phase, but a pilot food waste biorefinery in Germany looks promising. So, let’s call this a sustainability threefer.

More and Better Green Remediation

The Delhi team isn’t alone in its quest to turn a vampire remedy into a bioremediation tool. In Bulgaria, a team of researchers is experimenting with on-site plantings of garlic and grasses to absorb contaminants.

The use of plantings in green remediation is a whole ‘nother ball of wax, since it can involve perennial grasses, shrubs and fast-growing trees like poplar, all of which can double as biofuel crops.

If garlic joins the green remediation/biofuel club, that gives you the fuel of the future: it’s sustainable, and it keeps vampires off your car, too.

Follow me on Twitter: @TinaMCasey

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Washit: A water conserving washer in which you can shower too!

ORIGINAL: Ecochunk

By Anupam Jolly

According to statistics a five minute shower could cost you up to 20 gallons of water and your washer could consume anywhere around 24 gallons of water to launder clothes. While you might consider yourself lucky enough to have amenities like these at your disposal, somewhere in Rural Africa someone might have to travel for hours to get that much water for basic needs such as cooking and drinking. To help balance the water consumption at your home a team of four Turkish University students have conceptualized the Washit – a shower unit with an integrated front-loading washing machine.

The unique aspect of the design is that it doesn’t require fresh water for all processes, rather, it captures water whenever you shower and pass it through a series of three water filters – carbon, organic and chemical. After this, water is again sent to a UV cleaning phase to completely purify it. Purified water is then stored for further showering or washing clothes. The idea seems practical enough considering the fact that the amount of water an unregulated shower head throws on you is quite similar to what a front loading washing machine requires.

Via: Inhabitat/HomeChunk

6 Amazing Inventions Made Possible by Nanotechnology

ORIGINAL: MyLifeScoop

By Rebecca Paul (from Inhabitat) on March 21, 2012

Nanotechology has evolved by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and we've seen scores of big developments made possible by designs smaller than the eye can see. To get you up to speed on the latest and greatest in nano-scale technology, we've put together a mind-bending list of six of our favorite inventions - from water purifying tea bags to self-heating roads and clothing that cleans the air you breathe!

Nanotech Water Purifying Tea Bag

Millions of people around the world have limited access to drinking water - and diseases caused by contaminated water sources kill 1.8 million people each year. As both private and public entities continue to look for viable solutions to the problem, one promising development comes to us from South Africa, where researchers have used nanotechnology to create a water-purifying tea bag that costs just half a cent. In order to activate the tea bag, the user places it into the neck of a water bottle and then drinks water that passes through it. The design is portable and instantly effective! However, none of this would be possible without the help of nanotechnology - researchers have combined ultra-thin, nano-scale fibers with grains of activated carbon to filter harmful contaminants and kill bacteria.

Artificial Muscles to Propel Nanobots Through the Body

Nanotechnology has already had a significant impact on the world of medical science - however the next generation of nano-scale medical technology will blow your mind. For example, researchers from the University of British Columbia are currently working on a line of nanobots that will aim to diagnose and heal the body from the inside. In order to accomplish this amazing feat they have developed artificial muscles that are extremely flexible and strong enough to rotate objects a thousand times their own weight. By spinning carbon nanotubes into helical yarns, researchers were able to control the yarn with an electrochemical charge that causes them to twist and untwist. The muscle can be incorporated into bots with artificial flagella, or tiny tails that would rotate to propel them.

Self-Heating Roads Save Cars From Icy Conditions

When it comes unpredictable winter weather, maintaining safe driving conditions is a major concern. Luckily, over the past few years researchers at the University of Houston have made some great strides in turning the threat of icy roads into a worry of the past. Their self-heating roads are embedded with sheets of carbon nanofiber that are warmed by an electrical element. It only takes two hours and 6 watts of power to take a block of concrete from -10 to 0 C. We probably won't see streets across the states upgraded with the technology come December, but areas known for having dangerously icy conditions could be prime candidates for the first installations. 

Nanotechnology Makes Poop Power 20 Times More Efficient

As researchers continue to explore new ways to harness renewable energy from the wind, sun and waves, many people overlook another renewable resource -- the one we flush down our toilets. That's right, with a little help from fuel cells, engineers at Oregon State University are taking poop and turning it into clean, green electricity. These mad scientists discovered that by applying a nanoparticle coating to the anodes inside the fuel cells, they were able to increase the cell's energy production by a staggering 20 times. The energy produced could potentially power future waste management systems and alleviate their energy expense.

Catalytic Clothing Cleans the Air You Breathe

Fashion finds a new purpose with Catalytic Clothing's amazing pollution neutralizing textiles. Their innovative fabrics are designed to act as catalytic surfaces capable of scrubbing the air of nitrogen oxides and the volatile organic compounds that are emitted by factories and gas-guzzling modes of transportation. To create these air-purifying textiles, raw titanium dioxide is washed into clothing as an additive in a detergent. Once the fabric has dried, the garment is activated and the resulting titanium dioxide nanorods begin to attract and neutralize polluting particles that touch them. Catalytic Clothing's venture is simple, efficient, and it has the potential to turn all of us into walking air-filters.

Tube Shape Photovoltaic Cells Could Result in Solar Powered Clothing 

Today's solar-powered clothing sadly lacks fashion sense - garments typically consist of a solar panel strapped to a backpack or shirt. But this could soon change, as a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Xiamen University have developed a flexible tube-like photovoltaic cell that can be woven discretely in to fabric. The technology uses semi-conducting nanorods made from carbon fibers and titania that look similar to the bristles on a hairbrush. The industrial process to create the fabric is rather laborious and time-consuming, but these nanorods can be applied to photocatalysts to generate energy from the sun. The technology is still in its early stages, but we hope to see more breakthroughs on the horizon.