Alternative Materials

Making Natural Gas from Sunlight

Philip Proefrock

Producing natural gas from wastewater and sunlight sounds like an idealized fuel production scenario, and that is just what a company called HyperSolar is claiming to be able to do.

Unlike many other companies making fuel using microorganisms, the HyperSolar process is designed to mimic photosynthesis with a nanomaterial. Hydrogen is produced at normal pressure, and then reacted with injected CO2 to produce methane.

Sunlight activates the nanomaterial particles and produces a charge which allows the particle to release hydrogen from the water. The process can even use untreated wastewater as a feedstock, and will produce clean water along with the natural gas.

This kind of natural gas would, of course, be preferable to fossil natural gas, since it would use already freed CO2 and leave the sequestered fossil carbon undisturbed. Moreover, it would serve as a source of natural gas without the need for controversial extraction methods like fracking.

Because the process takes place at normal pressure and temperature, it is less expensive than other systems that require large capital investments for the special equipment needed for their processes.

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Whey Protein Transformed into Sustainable Food Packaging

Megan Treacy

Whey protein, a milk protein that is a byproduct of cheese production, is often used in protein bars and shakes, but scientists in Barcelona have discovered that it can also be made into a more sustainable plastic for food packaging.

The WheyLayer project was funded by the European Commission to find an alternative to petroleum sources in food packaging. Through this project, research company IRIS found that whey protein could replace synthetic petroleum-based polymers. The whey protein plastic has similar oxygen-blocking properties to traditional food packaging, but it's cheaper to make and, even better, more easily recyclable.

Traditional plastic packaging is hard to recycle because the petroleum-based polymers are almost impossible to separate for individual recycling, but with the whey protein plastic, the whey can be removed with enzymes so that the remaining film can be recycled or reused in new packaging.

This process also keeps the 40 percent of whey protein discarded by European cheese factories out of landfills.

via Earth911

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Plastic Made from Fish Scales

Megan Treacy

Erik de Laurens, a student from the Royal College of Art has come up with an alternative to petroleum for making plastic: fish scales. Through a process that involves nothing but heat, high pressure and natural dyes, Laurens developed a sturdy plastic that can be used in cups, eyewear and even decorative tiles.

Much like using the keratin from waste chicken feathers to make plastics, Laurens' process makes use of waste fish scales from the fishing industry, giving new life to something that would otherwise end up in the garbage. And while the thought of waste fish scales is kind of gross, the resulting products are actually really good looking.

Titled Fish Feast, his project will be on exhibit during the London Design Festival. It has been shortlisted for the 2011 Sustain RCA Award, which honors graduate student work in sustainable design.

via Crisp Green

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Nanocomposite Material Is Strengthened by Repeated Stress

Philip Proefrock

A new nanocomposite material discovered by researchers at Rice University has the intriguing property of getting stronger from repeated stress. The material is made from verticaly aligned nanotubes combined with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), an inert, rubbery polymer. After repeated compression (3.5 million cycles over a period of about a week), the material was found to be 12 percent stiffer than its original state.

Commercial possibilities for the material may not be immediately evident, but the research is intriguing. If the properties in this material can be understood, there may be applications for larger scale uses, such as for construction. Products that are subject to vibrational stresses may also be aided by materials like this which improve in stiffness over time.

via: KurzweilAI.net

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Photosynthesis Versus Photovoltaics - Which Is More Efficient?

Philip Proefrock

A team of reserachers led by Washington University in St. Louis has carried out a study that compares photosynthesis and photovoltaics, and finds that photovoltaics are the more efficient of the two (though that does depend on how you define "efficiency"). But, at the same time, they also point out that there may be opportunities in synthetic biology to improve on photosynthesis.

After our of recent articles on different ways of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using only sunlight and catalysts as a kind of artificial photosynthesis, it is interesting to have the perspective of this article, which is to be published in an upcoming issue of the magazine Science.

While standard photovoltaics can just produce electrons when they are able, plant photosynthesis needs to be able to sustain the plant at all times, or else it will die. For this reason, plant photosynthesis is more stable and robust, but at the same time, is less idealized to maximize energy production. The paper also discusses ways of making photovoltaic collectors more efficient by taking cues from the photosynthetic process.

"The point of the comparison is not to make us throw plants on the compost pile, the researchers said. For one, efficiency is only one consideration among many in the choice among energy technologies. More important are life-cycle costs, the capital cost and valuation of the environmental impact of a product from its creation to its destruction."

All factors including life-cycle costs, energy inputs, infrastructure requirements, and greenhouse gas balance need to be examined in order to determine the greatest total efficiency. But even if this a clear leader in efficiency, that should not necessarily result in dumping all technology into that one basket. Rather than using this analysis to pick a winner, it should serve to help improve other ways of doing things. Looking at the benefits each approach offers can give direction for how to improve the efficiency of other systems.

As an interesting aside, Dr. Daniel Nocera, the developer of the Sun Catalytix system is one of the several co-authors of this paper.

image: CC by Umberto Salvagnin/kaibara87

via: Solar Thermal Magazine and Michigan State University

[Edited to correct spelling of Nocera]

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