Cocoa and Veggie Car Ready to Race

October 06, 2009

A few weeks ago, researchers at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, unveiled a crazy-green Formula 3 racing car constructed with root veggies and fueled by a cocoa blend. This month, the WorldFirst car faces its first race.

You don't have to be a motorsports fan to appreciate the WorldFirst. Research team leader Kerry Kirwan calls it the greenest car in its class. TreeHugger calls it the "Flying Carrot." The seats are made from flax and soybean oil foam, the body contains recycled carbon and resin materials. A purple steering wheel sounds like V-8 juice: it contains carrots, assorted veggies, and beets. The fuel is a chocolate and animal fat blend.

On October 17, the 20-year-old rookie Aaron Steele will race the vehicle in the Formula 3 Championship final at Brands Hatch. Formula 3 tends to be a step on the way to serious international Formula 1 racing. The WorldFirst is certainly no homemade hippie go-kart. Chocolate in the tank helped it reach 135 miles per hour in test runs. I just hope it's got some serious fire protection. Hot cocoa-fuel anyone?

Photo: The WorldFirst research team with its green racer. Credit: University of Warwick.

Nontoxic Water Screening System Blasts Off

September 15, 2009

University of Utah chemists have developed a new nontoxic water testing system that they recently sent via the Discovery shuttle to be tested over six months in the International Space Station.

Astronauts there have two water purification systems--the Americans use iodine and the Russians use colloidal silver. Too little of either means microbe growth while too much iodine can cause thyroid problems and too much silver turns the skin grayish-blue, permanently. To test the water, the astronauts usually send samples back to Earth and wait for the results. Until now.

University of Utah chemistry professor Marc Porter led the creation of a two-part water testing system ten years in the making. A water sample is injected into a cartridge containing a membrane-covered disc of a nontoxic reactive chemical--5-(dimethylaminobenzylidene) rhodanine (DMABR) for silver and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) for iodine. The cartridge is then loaded into an industrial sensor usually used commercially to measure automotive paint color. The sensor can determine exactly how much iodine or silver is in the water sample. If all goes well, the astronauts will be able to correctly calibrate water disinfection in space.

The chemists are currently reworking their color-sensitive NASA system to detect levels of arsenic and heavy metals such as cadmium and lead in water on Earth. The inexpensive color-based detection systems out there now tend to be unreliable, says Lorraine Siperko, a senior research scientist on the University of Utah team. The chemists' goal is to create reliably reactive cartridges that cost less than a few dollars each.

"We want to make something that’s affordable and could be used in many parts of the world, especially where they have limited resources," Siperko says. "We want to make it easy, so you don’t have to be an astronaut."

Top: University of Utah chemist Lorraine Siperko has a zero gravity moment while testing a water monitoring system aboard a NASA aircraft. Bottom: Two of the color sensors. Credit: Courtesy of NASA.

Wide Angle: Artificial Parts Could Reduce Animal Testing

August 19, 2009

Whether you're against animal testing or not, at a certain point other mammals can't stand in for humans. Biologists in Germany hope the artificial organs they're developing can do the job instead.

Human liver cells don't last much longer than a day for testing and other animal livers are too different from our own to provide valid results. With that in mind, biotech professor Heike Mertsching and biology postdoc Johanna Schanz recently developed an artificial liver at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology in Stuttgart.

The liver was created using pig intestines from a slaughterhouse for the blood vessel system, which was cleaned and then filled with two different types of human cells. An automated bioreactor and pump kept the blood substitution circulating. So far the system works for around three weeks. The human cells come from clinics that perform biopsies, liposuction, and other voluntary tissue-removal. If all goes as planned, this liver could greatly shorten the time required to make and test drugs. The researchers are also working on developing artificial skin, intestines, and tracheas.

Schanz says that while the pig intestines work now for the liver model, if their approach is scaled up then novel techniques, including one called "electrospinning," could one day replace the pig parts. "It’s new and under development to produce three-dimensional scaffolds out of protein and build up such complex systems like vascularity," she says. "This is the future."

Photo: Johanna Schanz (left) holds an artificial liver that she and Heike Mertsching (right) developed at the Fraunhofer Institute. Credit: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

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Wide Angle: Alloy Keeps Sharks from Harm

August 07, 2009

As Shark Week comes to a close, it seems fitting that a special alloy to keep humans out of sharks' way is advancing.

Several years ago a New Jersey company called Shark Defense won an international smart gear contest with a metal attachment for fishing hooks that naturally keeps sharks away. The metal is actually an electropositive metal that produces voltage when it comes into contact with seawater. Sharks don't like the metal because the ampullae in their noses--which is how sharks detect heartbeats in prey--are sensitive to the voltage. 

Now, as Eric Bland reports on Discovery News, Shark Defense is planning to make actual hooks out of this metal. Company cofounder Eric Stroud tells Bland that when a shark encounters the metal, it's the equivalent of shining a flashlight in its eyes. A scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science has tested the alloy to show that it does work.

Although the company won't divulge the exact metal makeup of their shark-repelling gear, my hope is that we can learn more about how to use the metal effectively, especially in fishing operations. While I wouldn't want a scenario where sharks are constantly encountering the voltage, a little bit could save them from untimely ends.

Photo: A shark checks out a boat in Cape Town. Credit: Tim Sheerman-Case.

Giving Rechargeable Batteries a Pause

July 24, 2009

Whenever we charge a lithium ion battery, we're burning a quarter of a pound of coal. Ouch. With that stunning fact in mind, a University of Arizona professor and his research team are working on next-generation solar cells.

Current solar cells rely on silicon and other inorganic materials as semiconductors, but they're pricey to make and somewhat unwieldy. The ones coming out of Professor Neal (not Neil) Armstrong's research group at the university's Energy Frontier Research Center are tiny and extremely thin.

One prototype is a square sliver of glass coated with transparent indium tin oxide, an organic dye film, and an aluminum electrode. Armstrong envisions a day when you can buy some of these cells at, say, Target, roll them out, and use them to recharge your electronic devices. Similar to work being done at MIT, Armstrong is looking at ways to turn this thin solar cell technology into a kind of paint or ink process.

Armstrong, a chemist and optical scientist, acknowledges that making the cells inexpensive and durable remains a challenge, but thinks that what his group has in development is close to commercialization. Next time I recharge my batteries, I'll be thinking about the sun.

Here's a brief video from the university about the project:

Image: An organic photovoltaic cell on glass. Credit: The University of Arizona.

Chicken Surprise: Feather Meal Biodiesel

July 22, 2009

You already know that Americans eat a lot of chicken, but what are we doing with the 11 billion pounds of poultry waste we produce? Scientists from the University of Nevada have developed a new process to turn some of it into biodiesel.

Professor Mano Misra and his team at the University of Nevada took chicken feather meal, extracted fat from it at high temperatures, and turned that into biodiesel. Usually the meal--an appetizing mixture of feathers, blood, and innards--is used for nitrogen-rich fertilizer and animal feed. By removing the fat for biodiesel first, the researchers say that the leftovers are even more valuable for feed and fertilizer.

Based on America's collective appetite for chicken, the researchers estimate in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that the meal has the potential to produce 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually, 593 million globally. It's a drop in the barrel compared to the amount of crude oil we import daily, but if we're going to eat so much chicken we might as well use every last piece.

Photo Credit: Noël Zia Lee.

Lightening Up the Dark Side of Fireworks

July 03, 2009

Every year around July 4, I look at the glittering, smoky sky and a little voice in the back of my head goes, "Hey, all that stuff is probably not so great for the environment." But who wants to be that person? Fortunately, scientists are on it and there's a flash of optimism here.

What's actually up there: Fireworks contain heavy metals that produce the bright colors, oxygen-rich perchlorates that accelerate the explosions, and they produce particle-filled smoke at the end. TreeHugger's Michael Graham Richard points out that firework-filled new year celebrations in China tripled pollution levels there. Eek.

There is debate about whether the metals in fireworks do any real damage. Science-minded folks are quick to point out that the small amounts are combusted in the sky. But it's the perchlorates that make environmentalists most nervous because at high levels they can cause thyroid problems. The EPA issued a health advisory for the compound, but is waiting on more info from National Academy of Sciences before deciding whether to regulate it.

Emily Sohn at Discovery News reports that DMD Systems, a pyrotechnic research and development company in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has developed nitrogen-based fireworks that cut out the perchlorates, require much less barium, and produce less smoke. Greener fireworks remain pricier than their traditional counterparts, but what goes up has a good chance of coming down.

Photo: Micro fireworks. Credit: Flickr user Pixel Addict.

Introducing A New Variety of Garden Chrome

May 21, 2009

It's an MIT sweep this week: first the recycling robots, now the hard stuff--metal. An associate prof is giving killer chrome a run for its money.

Chrome--the shiny metal plating that clings to bathroom faucets and old cars--is made by zapping hexavalent chromium ions. Sound familiar? It's intensely toxic to the environment and people, and it was a sneaky villain in Erin Brockovich.

Associate professor of materials science at MIT Christopher Schuh and a research team looked for something that would still produce the effect of chrome, which is harder than steel. Nickel alone didn't cut it. So they tried nickel-tungsten alloys and hit gold. The alternative gets harder than chrome and lasts far longer. Plus, it's anti-corrosive, which could save the electronics industry a bundle. That's slick.

Photo: Chrome away from home. Credit: Erin Vermeer.

Wide Angle: Surgery Light, MacGyver-Style

May 04, 2009

Periodic power outages are more than just annoying. They're dangerous, especially if one happens in the middle of surgery. Enter the pie-plate-bike-part-LED-battery lamp, designed by a University of Michigan student group.

Michigan Health Engineered for ALL Lives, or M-HEAL, designs and repairs medical equipment in the developing world. A team led by engineering student Stephen DeWitt came up with a lamp prototype that can switch to battery power for short-term outages and could be hooked up to solar systems or hand cranks during longer ones. (Hat tip to GOOD magazine's blog.)

The students wanted to incorporate existing resources into their design and noticed that China was exporting a large number of LEDs to Sub-Saharan Africa. Their lamp connects eight LEDs to a pie pan for the light source. A automotive rear-view mirror serves as a joint connecting the pie pan to a bike break on the arm so the lamp head can be adjusted up and down. The whole thing costs about the same as a hand-held flashlight, which is what medical personnel have to resort to when the lights cut out mid-suture.

"Our end goal is to distribute plans to these lamps so anyone in developing countries can start building these lamps on their own," DeWitt says in a video about the project. Currently the lamp is being tested in Uganda. Using pie pans for the greater good is such a sweet idea.

Photo: Members of the M-HEAL lamp team with their prototype.

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Cow Dung Helps Zap Water Clean

April 26, 2009

Lately I've been immersed in invention, especially after an interesting call with Dean Kamen. For years, the guy has been working on machines that could make a huge difference for millions without access to clean water and electricity.

I've criticized Kamen's Segway in the past, so it was a nice change of pace to learn about his latest and greenest endeavors. One is a super-efficient sterling engine which can be powered by local fuels, including cow dung. "They could be made so that they could be distributed around the world, a point-of-use electricity," Kamen says.

You might remember Kamen's demo on the Colbert Report last year, where he showed the comedian a machine that uses electricity to clean water. The distiller can take on cryptosporidium, arsenic, and even hexavalent chromium. "It just needs some amount of electricity, but that comes from the little sterling generator I just told you about," Kamen says. Between the generator and water distiller, "you could supply two basic human needs to the sadly more than half of humanity that doesn’t have access to them," he continued.

The machines have been tested successfully in Bangladesh and Honduras, but there's no commercial release date for them yet. Currently Kamen says he's working on figuring out how to sustainably scale up production, distribution, and education around them. Turns out inventing was the easy part.

Image: A prototype of Kamen's water purification machine. Credit: Michael Edwards/Esquire.