Category Environment/Geology

A waste material from the paper and pulp industry soon could be made into anything from tennis rackets to cars, according to new findings by Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists.
Credit: Graphic courtesy of Texas A&M AgriLife Research

Scientists have discovered how to make high quality carbon fiber from lignin. About 50 million tons of lignin – or structural part of a plant – piles up each year as waste from the US paper and pulping industry. Additional lignin could come from biorefineries that use plants to produce ethanol, yielding another 100 million to 200 million tons of lignin waste each year. Yet only about 2% of the lignin waste is currently recycled into new products. “Lignin is considered as one of the most abundant biopolymers in the world,” he said...

A simulation of iron-60 atoms dispersed by multiple supernovae close to the solar system 2.2 million years ago. Some of that iron still lies at the bottom of the oceans and on the moon.

In 2016, researchers published “slam dunk” evidence, based on iron-60 isotopes in ancient seabed, that supernovae buffeted the Earth – one of them about 2.6 million years ago. Melott has followed up since those findings with an examination of the effects of the supernovae on Earth’s biology. In new research to appear in Astrophysical Journal, the KU researcher and colleagues argue the estimated distance of the supernova thought to have occurred roughly 2.6 million years ago should be cut in half.

“There’s even more evidence of that supernova now,” he said...

Don R. Baker et al, A metasomatic mechanism for the formation of Earth’s earliest evolved crust, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2017.01.022

More than 90% of Earth’s continental crust is made up of silica-rich minerals, eg, feldspar and quartz. But where did this silica-enriched material come from? And could it provide a clue in the search for life on other planets? Conventional theory holds that all of the early Earth’s crustal ingredients were formed by volcanic activity. Now, McGill University earth scientists Don Baker and Kassandra Sofonio have published a theory with a twist: some chemical components of this material settled onto Earth’s early surface from the steamy atmosphere that prevailed at the time.

First, a bit of ancient geochemical history: Sc...

‘Our team combined a catalyst we recently discovered with new and exciting chemistry to find the first high-yield, low-cost method of manufacturing butadiene,’ says Dionisios Vlachos, Director of the University of Delaware’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation. Credit: University of Delaware/ Jeffrey Chase

Findings by scientists could transform the multi-billion-dollar plastics and rubber industries used for manufacturing tires, toys and myriad other products. These items are produced from butadiene, a molecule traditionally made from petroleum or natural gas. But those humanmade materials could get a lot greener soon, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of scientists from three U.S. research universities...