Geobacter bacteria clean up nuclear waste and generate biodiesel & electricity

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst have recently engineered Geobacter metallireducens, a bacterium that can feed with hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce electricity. 

 Geobacter metallireducens
“This represents the first result of current production solely on hydrogen,” says Amit Kumar, who worked with Derek Lovely, the scientist who first isolated Geobacter metallireducens 26 years ago, in the Potomac River.

Geobacter species are of interest because of their bioremediation, bioenergy potential, novel electron transfer capabilities, the ability to transfer electrons outside the cell and transport these electrons over long distances via conductive filaments known as microbial nanowires.

By studying a relative of Geobacter metallireducens called Geobacter sulfurreducens, Kumar and the team produced electricity by having the bacteria reduce organic carbon compounds with a graphite electrode like iron oxide or gold to serve as the only electron receptor. The bacteria they chose for engineering did not have the need for carbon to grow in a microbial fuel cell.

Allison Speers, MSU graduate student, works on a fuel cell that can eliminate biodiesel producers' hazardous wastes and dependence on fossil fuels. Image by Kurt Stepnitz.

MSU microbiological Gemma Reguera, a co-author on the study, developed patented adaptive-engineered bacteria called Geobacter sulfurreducens. Geobacter are naturally occurring microbes that have proved promising in cleaning up nuclear waste and in improving other biofuel processes.

“Geobacter shield themselves from uranium by producing hair-like filaments that attract and bind the uranium very strongly,” Reguera said. “The bacterial hairs are fully charged with electricity, just like a live electrical wire, and zap the uranium. And what happens next is simple chemistry - the soluble, dangerous uranium is immobilised onto the wires as a mineral. This prevents its spread and protects us from exposure.”

Reguera, along with lead authors and MSU graduate students Allison Speers and Jenna Young, evolved Geobacter to withstand increasing amounts of toxic glycerol. They then searched for partner bacteria that could ferment it into ethanol while generating by-products that ‘fed’ the Geobacter.

“It took some tweaking, but we eventually developed a robust bacterium to pair with Geobacter,” Reguera said. “We matched them up like dance partners, modifying each of them to work seamlessly together and eliminate all of the waste.

“[The bacteria] feast like they’re at a Las Vegas buffet. One bacterium ferments the glycerol waste to produce bioethanol, which can be re-used to make biodiesel from oil feedstocks. Geobacter removes any waste produced during glycerol fermentation to generate electricity. It is a win-win situation.”

Image courtesy of Gemma Reguera.
The microbes are the featured component of Reguera’s microbial electrolysis cells, or MECs. These fuel cells do not harvest electricity as an output - rather, they use a small electrical input platform to generate hydrogen and increase the MEC’s efficiency even more.
Through a Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization grant, Reguera and her team are now developing prototypes that can handle larger volumes of waste. She is also in talks with MBI, an enterprise operated by the MSU Foundation, to develop industrial-sized units that could handle the capacities of a full-scale biodiesel plant.
“Traditional approaches see producers pay hefty fees to have toxic wastewater hauled off to treatment plants,” Reguera said. “By cleaning the water with microbes on-site, we’ve come up with a way to allow producers to generate bioethanol, which replaces petrochemical methanol. At the same time, they are taking care of their hazardous waste problem.”

Read more: http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/article/microbes-to-clean-up-nuclear-waste-and-generate-biodiesel-995091874#ixzz4LnTvPgPp

Producing Activated Carbon

Activated carbon is a processed, porous version of carbon that has many different uses, especially adsorption and chemical reaction needs for water and gas purification. Because activated carbon particles are so porous, they have very expansive surface areas tucked into the holes and tunnels all over their surface. These areas can be filled with other materials for other purposes as well. For instance, in water purification, silver is mixed into the carbon pores in order to filter contaminants like mercury and organic arsenic from water for domestic drinking purposes. Because carbon is produced from charcoal through a relatively inexpensive and simple series of activation processes, it can be had in great quantities for many applications.

The production process of activated, or active, carbon exists in two forms. A carbonaceous source, which can exist as coal, peat, or any organic carbonaceous material is carbonized, which means the pure carbon is extracted by a heating method known as pyrolysis. Once the material is carbonized, it needs to be oxidized, or treated with oxygen, either by exposure to CO₂ or steam, or by an acid-base chemical treatment.

Carbonization

Carbonization is the process of taking a carbon-rich piece of material and converting it to pure carbon through heating. This heating process, called pyrolysis, comes from an ancient technique for making charcoal. Very dense carbonaceous material is used in the beginning, because the end result needs to be extra-porous for activated carbon purposes. Carbon-rich material is placed in a small (relative to the amount of material) furnace and cooked at extreme temperatures topping 2000 degrees Celsius. What remains is usually 20-30 percent of the beginning weight, and consists of mostly carbon and a small percentage of inorganic ash. This is very similar to “coking,” a method of producing coke from charcoal, a type of carbon-based fuel.

Once the porous form of carbon is produced, it needs to undergo oxidization so it can be adsorbent. This can occur in one of two ways: gas or chemical treatment.

Gas Treatment

The activizing of carbon can be done directly through heating in a chamber while gas is pumped in. This exposes it to oxygen for oxidization purposes. When oxidized, the active carbon is susceptible to adsorption, the process of surface bonding for chemicals—the very thing that makes activated carbon so good for filtering waste and toxic chemicals out of liquids and gases. For physical gas treatment, the carbonization pyrolysis process must take place in an inert environment at 600-900 degrees Celsius. Then, an oxygenated gas is pumped into the environment and heated between 900 and 1200 degrees Celsius, causing the oxygen to bond to the carbon’s surface.

Chemical Treatment

In chemical treatment, the process is slightly different from the gas activization of carbon. For one, carbonization and chemical activation occur simultaneously. A bath of acid, base or other chemicals is prepared and the material submerged. The bath is then heated to temperatures of 450-900 degrees Celsius, much less than the heat needed for gas activation. The carbonaceous material is carbonized and then activated, all at a much quicker pace than gas activization. However, some heating processes cause trace elements from the bath to adsorb to the carbon, which can result in impure or ineffective active carbon.

Post Treatment Activated Carbon

Following oxidization, activated carbon can be processed for many different kinds of uses, with several classifiably different properties. For instance, granular activated carbon (GAC) is a sand-like product with bigger grains than powdered activated carbon (PAC), and each are used for different applications. Other varieties include impregnated carbon, which includes different elements such as silver and iodine, and polymer coated carbons.

History of Bayer

Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical giant founded in Barmen, Germany in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer and his partner, Johann Friedrich Weskott. Today it has its headquarters in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It trademarked acetylsalicylic acid as aspirin in 1899. It also trademarked heroin a year earlier, then marketed it world-wide for decades as a cough medicine for children "without side-effects", despite the well known dangers of addiction.

During the First World War, Bayer turned its attention to the manufacture of chemical weapons including chlorine gas, which was used to horrendous effect in the trenches. It also built up a "School for Chemical Warfare". During this time Bayer formed a close relationship with other German chemical firms, including BASF and Hoechst. This relationship was formalised in 1925 when Bayer was one of the chemical companies that merged to form the massive German conglomerate Interessengemeinschaft Farben or IG Farben, for short. It was the largest single company in Germany and it became the single largest donor to Hitler's election campaign. After Hitler came to power, IG Farben worked in close collaboration with the Nazis, becoming the largest profiteer from the Second World War. Amongst much else, IG Farben produced all the explosives for the German military and systematically looted the chemical industries of occupied Europe. It's been described as the Nazis' "industrial jackal" following in the wake of Hitler's armies.
more:http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/11153-bayer-a-history

The beauty of chemistry is colors

CHEMISTRY LAW OF ATTRACTION ART OF SCIENCE

 

The Law of Attraction is based on the laws of attractive and repulsive force first introduced by Emperdocles, Greek pre-Socratic Philosopher, and later expanded upon by Plato. Plato asserted the first law of affinity that likes tend to attract to other likes.

Through the application of affinity to chemical systems, Albertus Magnus, also known as St. Albert the Great, a Dominican friar and bishop, introduced the four laws of affinity.

In the late 1600's, Isaac Newton proposed that chemical affinities were due to particular forces that tended to follow similar laws of planetary motion. Though other individuals, such as French physician and chemist Etienne Geoffroy who expanded on Newton's affinities by introducing a refined law of affinity in the early 1700's, and French chemist J.P. Macquer who later published six truths of chemical affinity, had prominent influence regarding the development on the Laws of Attraction, Newton is considered to be the one who discovered the laws.

However, it best be known that ancient Greeks knew from the observation of magnetics that opposites attract and likes repel.

Today the term 'Law of Attraction' is a household buzz word due to recent popularized films and best selling books. The laws are described as an effective tool for bringing forth your wishes while repelling lack, disease, and other negative energy one may prefer to avoid. The practice of expressing gratitude is said to emanate positive energy, and like a vibratory wave the energy is cast out to the universe. Our thought of a wish already being achieved is said to cause the wish to be immediately true, returning back to you the like energy of the wish as a part of your reality.

In this way, we are to understand that we have the ability to manifest that which we desire. We can also assume that any negative energy we seemingly experience is caused by our own manifestation through repeatedly focusing on negative thoughts and feelings. To release our negative experiences we simply change how we think and feel to attract that which we would rather experience.

The Urea Cycle

The urea cycle (also known as the ornithine cycle) is a cycle of biochemical reactions occurring in many animals that produces urea ((NH2)2CO) from ammonia (NH3). This cycle was the first metabolic cycle discovered (Hans Krebs and Kurt Henseleit, 1932), five years before the discovery of the TCA cycle. In mammals, the urea cycle takes place primarily in the liver, and to a lesser extent in the kidney.

 
Organisms that cannot easily and quickly remove ammonia usually have to convert it to some other substance, like urea or uric acid, which are much less toxic. Insufficiency of the urea cycle occurs in some genetic disorders (inborn errors of metabolism), and in liver failure. The result of liver failure is an accumulation of nitrogenous waste, mainly ammonia, which leads to hepatic encephalopathy.

The urea cycle consists of five reactions: two mitochondrial and three cytosolic. The cycle converts two amino groups, one from NH4+ and one from Asp, and a carbon atom from HCO3−, to the relatively nontoxic excretion product urea at the cost of four "high-energy" phosphate bonds (3 ATP hydrolyzed to 2 ADP and one AMP). Ornithine is the carrier of these carbon and nitrogen atoms.

In the first reaction, NH4+ + HCO3− is equivalent to NH3 + CO2 + H2O.

Thus, the overall equation of the urea cycle is: shown in the diagram.

NH3 + CO2 + aspartate + 3 ATP + 2 H2O → urea + fumarate + 2 ADP + 2 Pi + AMP + PPi
Since fumarate is obtained by removing NH3 from aspartate (by means of reactions 3 and 4), and PPi + H2O → 2 Pi, the equation can be simplified as follows:

2 NH3 + CO2 + 3 ATP + H2O → urea + 2 ADP + 4 Pi + AMP
Note that reactions related to the urea cycle also cause the production of 2 NADH, so the urea cycle releases slightly more energy than it consumes. This NADH is produced in two ways:

One NADH molecule is reduced by the enzyme glutamate dehydrogenase in the conversion of glutamate to ammonium and α-ketoglutarate. Glutamate is the non-toxic carrier of amine groups. This provides the ammonium ion used in the initial synthesis of carbamoyl phosphate.

The fumarate released in the cytosol is converted to malate by cytosolic fumarase. This malate is then converted to oxaloacetate by cytosolic malate dehydrogenase, generating a reduced NADH in the cytosol. Oxaloacetate is one of the keto acids that are preferred by transaminases, and so will be recycled to aspartate, maintaining the flow of nitrogen into the urea cycle.

The two NADH produced can provide energy for the formation of 4 ATP (cytosolic NADH provides only 1.5 ATP due to the glycerol-3-phosphate shuttle who transfers the electrons from cytosolic NADH to FADH2 and that gives 1.5 ATP), net production of one high-energy phosphate bond for the urea cycle. However, if gluconeogenesis is underway in the cytosol, the latter reducing equivalent is used to drive the reversal of the GAPDH step instead of generating ATP.

The fate of oxaloacetate is either to produce aspartate via transamination or to be converted to phosphoenolpyruvate, which is a substrate for gluconeogenesis.

Enrico Fermi an Italian physicist

Enrico Fermi (September 29, 1901 – November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist, who created the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of the few physicists to excel both theoretically and experimentally.

Fermi held several patents related to the use of nuclear power, and was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and the discovery of transuranic elements. He made significant contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics.

Fermi's first major contribution was to statistical mechanics. After Wolfgang Pauli announced his exclusion principle in 1925, Fermi followed with a paper in which he applied the principle to an ideal gas, employing a statistical formulation now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics. Today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called "fermions". Later Pauli postulated the existence of an uncharged invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy.

Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle, which he named the "neutrino". His theory, later referred to as Fermi's interaction and still later as weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Through experiments inducing radioactivity with recently discovered neutrons, Fermi discovered that slow neutrons were more easily captured than fast ones, and developed the Fermi age equation to describe this.

After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements; although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were subsequently revealed to be fission products.

Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new Italian Racial Laws that affected his Jewish wife Laura Capon. He emigrated to the United States where he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Fermi led the team that designed and built Chicago Pile-1, which went critical on 2 December 1942, demonstrating the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. He was on hand when the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, went critical in 1943, and when the B Reactor at the Hanford Site did so the next year. At Los Alamos he headed F Division, part of which worked on Edward Teller's thermonuclear "Super" bomb. He was present at the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, where he used his Fermi method to estimate the bomb's yield.

After the war, Fermi served under J. Robert Oppenheimer on the General Advisory Committee, which advised the Atomic Energy Commission on nuclear matters and policy. Following the detonation of the first Soviet fission bomb in August 1949, he strongly opposed the development of a hydrogen bomb on both moral and technical grounds.

He was among the scientists who testified on Oppenheimer's behalf at the 1954 hearing that resulted in the denial of the latter's security clearance. Fermi did important work in particle physics, especially related to pions and muons, and he speculated that cosmic rays arose through material being accelerated by magnetic fields in interstellar space.

Many awards, concepts, and institutions are named after Fermi, including the Enrico Fermi Award, the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, and the synthetic element fermium (one of just over a dozen elements named after people). Source Wikipedia

List of Important Acids & Bases to be known

Chemistry facts

Like most materials, the material glass expands when it gets warmer. When you place your thick glass in hot water, the outside of the glass gets hot right away. Glass is not good at transferring heat, so the inside of the glass gets hot later. Due to the thickness of the glass it takes some time until the warmth has reached the inner layer of the thick glass. This uneven distribution of warmth causes the outer layer of your glass to expand first. Because the inner layer is not yet warm and does not expand yet, a strong tension is being grated within the glass layer. And if you're unlucky, your glass cracks because of that!

The Solvay Conference

Cecile G. Tamura

Is this the greatest meeting of minds ever? Einstein and Curie among SEVENTEEN nobel prize winners at historic conference
It would be hard to imagine a more intelligent and brilliant group of people, let alone all these great minds in the same room together.
However this was the case in 1927 when Einstein and his venerable colleagues gathered at the Solvay Conference on Electrons and Photons in Brussels.

The International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry was founded by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay in 1912, following the historic invitation-only 1911 Conseil Solvay, the first world physics conference.

Since then some of the greatest scientists in the world have come together about every three years to discuss the most perplexing problems in both physics and chemistry.

The most famous conference was the October 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons, where the world’s most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory.

The leading figures were Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Einstein, disenchanted with Heisenberg’s 'Uncertainty Principle,' remarked 'God does not play dice.' Bohr, who won his Nobel prize in 1922. replied, 'Einstein, stop telling God what to do.'

This was not the only squabble between Einstein and Bohr however, as the two interpretations of the laws of physics was a great source of controversy between the pair. More recent research published in the academic journal, Physical Review Letters, has shown Bohr's theory to be the stronger of the two.

Despite Bohr's obvious talent and immense intelligence, Einstein is still a lot more well known. 'You don't need to be Einstein to work that out' is a common saying still used, whereas Bohr is not nearly as much of a household name.

Einstein received his Nobel Prize in 1922 also, 'for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect'. However the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel.

According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied.

Seventeen of the twenty-nine attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners, including Marie Curie, who is not hard to spot as the only woman in the photograph.

The charity Marie Curie Cancer is one of the biggest cancer charities in the country, which began in 1948 when committee members decided to preserve the Marie Curie name in the charitable medical field.

Marie Curie had won Nobel Prizes in two separate scientific disciplines.

Also among the distinguished panel was Erwin Schrodinger. Eight years after this group photograph was taken he devised his famous quantum theory called Schrodinger’s Cat.

This suggested something could exist in two different states at the same time until it was observed.

In the experiment, Schrodinger proposed the idea of a cat left in a box with a radioactive substance, which had a 50 per cent chance of decaying and releasing a poison, thus killing the cat within an hour.

Because there is also a 50 per cent chance the substance would not decay, and thus not release the poison, quantum mechanics dictate that the cat is neither alive, nor dead, until the box is opened for measurement.

 Photograph of the first conference in 1911 at the Hotel Metropole. Seated (L-R): W. Nernst, M. Brillouin, E. Solvay, H. Lorentz, E. Warburg, J. Perrin, W. Wien, M. Skłodowska-Curie, and H. Poincaré. Standing (L-R): R. Goldschmidt, M. Planck, H. Rubens, A. Sommerfeld, F. Lindemann, M. de Broglie, M. Knudsen, F. Hasenöhrl, G. Hostelet, E. Herzen, J.H. Jeans, E. Rutherford, H. Kamerlingh Onnes, A. Einstein and P. Langevin.

Back row L-R: A Piccard, E Henriot, P Ehrenfest, Ed Herzen, Th. De Donder, E Schroedinger, E Verschaffelt, W Pauli, W Heisenberg, R. H Fowler, L Brillouin
Middle row L-R: P Debye, M Knudsen, W. L Bragg, H. A Kramers. P. A. M Dirac, A. H Compton, L. V. De Broglie, M Born, N Bohr
Front row: L-R: Angmeir, M Planck, M Curie, H. A Lorentz, A Einstein, P Langevin, Ch. E Guye, C. T. R Wilson, O. W Richardson

Back row L-R

Auguste Picard

DOB: 28 January 1884 Nationality: Swiss Fact: Made record-breaking ascent to 53,152ft in a balloon and also designed submarines. Basis for character Professor Cuthbert Calculus in TinTin. Gene Roddenberry named the Star Trek captain Jean Luc Picard after him.

Émile Henriot

DOB: 2 July 1885 Nationality: French Fact: First to show definitely that potassium and rubidium are naturally radioactive.

Paul Ehrenfest

DOB: 18 January 1880 Nationality: Austrian Fact: Mathmetician who worked on statistical mechanics. In his final years he suffered severe depression. At one point Einstein was so worried that he wrote to the Board of the University of Leiden, suggesting ways to reduce Ehrenfest's workload.
Edouard Herzen
DOB: 1876 Nationality: French Fact: Paris-based artist with an interest in pscyhoanalysis. He was good friends with Sigmund Freud.

Théophile Ernest de Donder

DOB: 1872 Nationality: Belgian Fact: He is considered the father of thermodynamics of irreversible processes, and wrote several books.

Erwin Schrödinger

DOB: 12 August 1887 Nationality: Austrian Fact: Conducted the famous experiment known as Schrödinger's cat, which postulated that something could exist in two states until it was observed.

Jules-Émile Verschaffelt

DOB: 27 January 1870 Nationality: Belgian Fact: He specialised in crystallography - the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids.

Wolfgang Ernst Pauli

DOB: 25 April 1900 Nationality: Austrian Fact: Theoretical physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1945 for his discovery of a new law of nature known as the exclusion principle. He had a severe breakdown following his divorce in 1930 and consulted psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung.

Werner Heisenberg

DOB: 5 December 1901 Nationality: German Fact: Awarded Nobel prize for physics in 1932. Best known for asserting the uncertainty principle in quantum theory. He was head of Germany's nuclear fusion research during World War Two.

Sir Ralph Howard Fowler

DOB: 17 January 1889 Nationality: English Fact: He worked as second in command working with the Experimental Department of HMS Excellent on Whale Island and made a major contribution on the aerodynamics of spinning shells, for which he was awarded an OBE in 1918.

Léon Nicolas Brillouin

DOB: August 7 1889 Nationality: French Fact: He contributed to quantum mechanics and radio wave propagation in the atmosphere.

Middle row L-R

Peter Joseph William Debye

DOB: March 24 1884 Nationality: Dutch Fact: Won theNobel prize for chemistry in 1936 for his study of molecular structure.

In January 2006, a book written by Sybe Rispens, alleged Debye had been actively involved in cleansing German science institutions of Jewish and other 'non-Aryan elements.'

Martin Hans Christian Knudsen

DOB: 15 February 1871 Nationality: Danish Fact: Knudsen was very active in physical oceanography, developing methods of defining properties of seawater.

Sir William Lawrence Bragg

DOB: 31 March 1890 Nationality: Australian Fact: He was joint winner with his father, Sir William Bragg, of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915. He is most famous for his law on the diffraction of X-rays by crystals.

Hendrik Anthony Kramers

DOB: February 2 1894 Nationality: Dutch Fact: The physicist was one of the founders of the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. He won the Lorentz Medal in 1947 and Hughes Medal in 1951.

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac

DOB: August 8 1902 Nationality: Dutch Fact: Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, 'for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.'

Arthur Holly Compton

DOB: September 10 1892 Nationality: American Fact: Along with being an academic his father was a Presbyterian clergyman. Won nobel prize in physics in 1927. Discovered Compton scattering - a type of scattering that X-rays and gamma rays undergo in matter.

Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond, 7th duc de Broglie

DOB: August 15 1892 Nationality: French Fact: In addition to strictly scientific work, de Broglie thought and wrote about the philosophy of science, including the value of modern scientific discoveries.

Max Born

DOB: December 11 1882 Nationality: German Fact: Born was one of the 11 signatories to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. He is also the great-grandfather of the famous TV editor and percussionist Kip Thompson-Born.

Niels Henrik David Bohr

DOB: 7 October 1885 Nationality: Danish Fact: Bohr married Margrethe Nørlund in 1912, and one of their sons, Aage Bohr, grew up to be an important physicist who in 1975 also received the Nobel prize.

Front row L-R

Irving Langmuir

DOB: 31 January 1881 Nationality: American Fact: Langmuir was married to Marion Mersereau in 1912 with whom he adopted two children: Kenneth and Barbara. After a short illness, he died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts from a heart attack in 1957. His obituary ran on the front page of The New York Times.

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck

DOB: 23 April 1858 Nationality: German Fact: Planck is a space observatory launched in 2009 was named after him. It is designed to observe the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) over the entire sky, using high sensitivity and angular resolution.

Marie Skłodowska Curie

DOB: 7 November 1867 Nationality: Polish Fact: While an actively loyal French citizen, Skłodowska–Curie (as she styled herself) never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element that she discovered 'polonium' (1898) for her native country.

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz

DOB: 18 July 1853 Nationality: Dutch Fact: In addition to the Nobel prize, Lorentz received a great many honours for his outstanding work. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905. The Society awarded him their Rumford Medal in 1908 and their Copley Medal in 1918.

Albert Einstein

DOB: 14 March 1879 Nationality: German Fact: Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works. His great intelligence and originality have made the word 'Einstein' synonymous with genius.

Paul Langevin

DOB: 23 January 1872 Nationality: French Fact: His daughter, Hélène Solomon-Langevin, was arrested for Resistance activity and survived several concentration camps. She was on the same convoy of female political prisoners as Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier and Charlotte Delbo.

Charles Eugene Guy

DOB: 1866 Nationality: Swiss Fact: His research focus was on the field of electric currents, magnetism, gas discharges. He was involved in Einstein’s work on the special theory of relativity.

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson

DOB: 14 February 1869 Nationality: Scottish Fact: The Wilson Condensation Cloud formations, occurring after a very large explosion (such as a nuclear detonation), are named after him.
The Wilson Society, the natural sciences society of Sidney Sussex College, is also named for him.

Sir Owen Willans Richardson

DOB: 26 April 1879 Nationality: English Fact: He demonstrated that the current from a heated wire seemed to depend exponentially on the temperature of the wire with a mathematical form similar to the Arrhenius equation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/solvay-conference-probably…/

http://www.businessinsider.com/solvay-conference-1927-2015-4

How big is a proton? No one knows exactly, and that’s a problem

It’s a subatomic mystery with big implications. Six years after physicists announced a bafflingly too small measurement of the size of the proton, we’re still not sure what’s going on. With the release of new data today, the mystery has, if anything, got deeper.

Protons are particles found inside the nucleus of atoms. For years, the proton’s radius seemed pinned down at about 0.877 femtometres, or less than a quadrillionth of a metre.

But in 2010, Randolf Pohl at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, got a worryingly different answer using a new measurement technique.

Pohl’s team altered the one proton, one electron composition of a hydrogen atom by switching the electron for a heavier particle called a muon. They then zapped this altered atom with a laser. Measuring the resulting change in its energy levels allowed them to calculate the size of its proton nucleus. To their surprise, it came out 4 per cent smaller than the traditional value measured via other means.

A 2013 measurement strengthened the finding, sending physicists searching for an explanation to the “proton radius puzzle“.

Pohl’s experiment also applied the new technique to deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that has one proton and one neutron – collectively known as a deuteron – at its nucleus. Accurately calculating the size of the deuteron took plenty of time, however.

“The only thing that’s going to allow us to solve it is new data”
Today, the team have published their measurements, revealing that like the proton, the deuteron comes up short: in this case by 0.8 per cent.

These new numbers show that the proton radius problem isn’t going away, says Evangeline J. Downie at the George Washington University in Washington DC. “It tells us that there’s still a puzzle,” says Downie. “It’s still very open, and the only thing that’s going to allow us to solve it is new data.”

Several more experiments, at Pohl’s lab and others, are already under way. One will return to the same muon technique to measure the size of heavier atomic nuclei, like helium. Another plans to simultaneously measure the scattering of muons and electrons.

Pohl suspects the culprit may not be the proton itself, but an incorrect measurement of the Rydberg constant, a number that describes the wavelengths of light emitted by an excited atom. But this constant is well established through other precision experiments, so something drastic would have to have gone wrong.

Another explanation proposes new particles that cause unexpected interactions between the proton and the muon, without changing its relationship with the electron.

That could mean the puzzle is taking us beyond the standard model of particle physics. “If at some point in the future, somebody will discover something beyond the standard model, it would be like this,” says Pohl, with first one small discrepancy, then another and another, slowly building to a more monumental shift.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6300/669

https://www.newscientist.com/…/2100834-how-big-is-a-proto…/…

http://arstechnica.com/…/researchers-orbit-a-muon-around-a…/

https://www.newscientist.com/…/dn23105-shrinking-proton-pu…/

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/pictures/deuteron.cfm

https://www.psi.ch/media/the-psi-proton-accelerator

Adsorption (Activated Carbon)

Compiled by:

Félicien Mazille (Aquasis, cewas international centre for water management services) , Dorothee Spuhler (seecon international gmbh)

Activated carbon filtration is a commonly used technology based on the adsorption of contaminants onto the surface of a filter. This method is effective in removing certain organics (such as unwanted taste and odours, micropollutants), chlorine, fluorine or radon from drinking water or wastewater. However, it is not effective for microbial contaminants, metals, nitrates and other inorganic contaminants. The adsorption efficiency depends on the nature of activated carbon used, the water composition, and operating parameters. There are many types of activated carbon filters that can be designed for household, community and industry requirements. Activated carbon filters are relatively easy to install but require energy and skilled labour and can have high costs due to regular replacement of the filter material.

In	Out
Freshwater,Non-biodegradable Wastewater, Treated Water	Drinking Water, Treated Water

Introduction

The use of carbon in the form of charcoal has been used since antiquity for many applications. In Hindu documents dating from 450 BC charcoal filters are mentioned for the treatment of water. Charred wood, bones and coconut charcoals were used during the 18th and 19th century by the sugar industry for decolourising solutions (CECEN 2011). Activated carbon is a material prepared in such a way that it exhibits a high degree of porosity and an extended surface area.

A typical carbon particle has numerous pores that provide a large surface area for water treatment. Source: LEMLEY et al. (1995)

During water filtration through activated carbon, contaminants adhere to the surface of these carbon granules or become trapped in the small pores of the activated carbon (AMIRAULT et al. 2003). This process is called adsorption. Activated carbon filters are efficient to remove certain organics (such as unwanted taste and odours, micropollutants), chlorine, fluorine or radon, from drinking water or wastewater. However, it is not effective for microbial contaminants, metals, nitrates and other inorganic contaminants.Activated carbon filtration is commonly used in centralised treatment plants and at household level, to produce drinking water and in industries to treat effluents. It is also an upcoming treatment applied for the removal of micropollutants both in drinking water production and for the purification of treated wastewater before disposal (see also surface disposal or surface and subsurface groundwater recharge).

Treatment Principles

(Adapted from LEMLEY et al. 1995)

Activated carbon filters for water treatment. Source: FOCUS TECHNOLOGY CO LTD (2011)

There are two basic types of water filters: particulate filters and adsorptive/reactive filters. Particulate filters exclude particles by size, and adsorptive/reactive filters contain a material (medium) that either adsorbs or reacts with a contaminant in water. The principles of adsorptive activated carbon filtration are the same as those of any other adsorption material. The contaminant is attracted to and held (adsorbed) on the surface of the carbon particles. The characteristics of the carbon material (particle and pore size, surface area, surface chemistry, etc.) influence the efficiency of adsorption.
The characteristics of the chemical contaminant are also important. Compounds that are less water-soluble are more likely to be adsorbed to a solid. A second characteristic is the affinity that a given contaminant has with the carbon surface. This affinity depends on the charge and is higher for molecules possessing less charge. If several compounds are present in the water, strong adsorbers will attach to the carbon in greater quantity than those with weak adsorbing ability.

Preparation of Activated Carbon

(Adapted from DROVAC and SKIPTON 2008)

Wood based powder activated carbon for drinking water treatment. Source: GCHFF (2011)

The medium for an activated carbon filter is typically petroleum coke, bituminous coal, lignite, wood products, coconut shell or peanut shell. The carbon medium is “activated” by subjecting it to stream (a gas like water, argon or nitrogen) and high temperature (800-1000°C) usually without oxygen. In some cases, the carbon may also undergo an acidic wash or be coated with a compound to enhance the removal of specific contaminants. The activation produces carbon with many pores and a high specific surface area. It is then crushed to produce a granular or pulverised carbon product.

Use of Activated Carbon Units

(Adapted from DROVAC and SKIPTON 2008)

 Types of activated carbon units. Source: AMIRAULT et al. (2003)

Activated carbon units are commonly used to remove organics (odours, micropollutants) from drinking water at centralised and decentralised level. At centralised level, they are generally part of one of the last steps, before the water is fed into the water distribution network. At decentralised level, activated carbon filtration units can either be point-of-use (POU) or point-of-entry (POE) treatment. A POE device is recommended for the treatment of radon and volatile organic compounds because these contaminants can easily vaporise from water in showers or washing machines and expose users to health hazards. POU devices are useful for the removal of lead and chlorine. The structure of POU devices can either be in-line, line-bypass faucet mounted (see also advanced filters) or pour-through (similar to the design of ceramic candles, colloidal silver or biosand filters).
Activated carbon filters can also be used as a tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants to remove micropollutants from municipal effluents or recalcitrant contaminants from industrial effluents.

Combination of Activated Carbon With Other Processes

Activated carbon is often used as pre-treatment to protect other water treatment units such as reverse osmosis membranes and ion exchange resins from possible damage due to oxidation or organic fouling. The combination of ozonation with activated carbon is a very efficient technique for eliminating organic matter including micropollutants. Besides, the lifetime of activated carbon filters is extended drastically when used in combination with ozone, deceasing operation costs substantially (AEPPLI and DYER-SMITH 1996).

Cost Considerations

(Adapted from AMIRAULT et al. 2003)
Installation costs are moderate but additional technical equipment is required. Operating costs are usually limited to filter replacement. Depending on the type and concentration of the contaminant being removed, some carbon filters may require special hazardous waste handling and disposal, which can be costly.

Operation and Maintenance

(Adapted from LEMLEY et al. 1995)
Carbon filters are relatively easy to install and maintain but skilled labour is required at least occasionally for monitoring the removal performance over time of both POU and POE equipment. Activated carbon filters have a limited lifetime. After long-term use, their surfaces are saturated with adsorbed pollutants and no further purification occurs. The filter material therefore has to be replaced at regular intervals, according to manufacturer's instructions. Replacement intervals should be calculated based on the average daily water use through the filter and the amount of contaminant being removed. Cartridge disposal depends on usage. A carbon cartridge can be backwashed and then reused or discarded if non-toxics have been adsorbed.

At a Glance

Working Principle	The pollutants are removed from water through adsorption on the surface of the activated carbon. Use at the POE or POU (e.g. advanced filters).
Capacity/Adequacy	Simple technique using abundant raw material (e.g. petroleum coke, bituminous coal, lignite, wood products, coconut shell or peanut shell). Skilled labour required at least occasionally.
Performance	Efficient for pollutant having high affinity with activated carbon surface (non-polar compounds).
Costs	Relatively low operation costs.
Self-help Compatibility	Initial analysis of water is required to choose proper adsorbent (type of activated carbon).
O&M	Regular replacement or regeneration of carbon cartridge.
Reliability	Reliable if the water composition is taken into account when choosing the type of activated carbon used as filter material.
Main strength	Activated carbon can be produced relatively easily everywhere in the world.
Main weakness	Filter has to be replaced on a regular basis.

Applicability

Activated carbon filters are widely used to produce drinking water at household and community level (to remove certain organics, chlorine or radon from drinking water) and to treat industrial or municipal wastewaters. It is not efficient for disinfection and nitrates removal. Adsorption on activated carbon is a simple technology based on materials such as fossil fuels (petroleum coke, lignite...) and even agricultural waste (e.g. coconut shell, wood, etc.).
To choose the most applicable type of activated carbon for a given application it is important to analyse the composition of the influent water previously. The carbon filter has to be replaced or regenerated regularly to remain efficient. Activated carbon can also be used as a pre-treatment to protect other water treatment units.

Advantages

• Easy to install and maintain
• Can be used at the point-of-entry (semi-centralised drinking water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants) or at the point-of-use (household/community filters)
• Efficient to remove certain organics, chlorine, radon
• Based on materials available everywhere

Disadvantages

• Filter has to be replaced regularly
• Skilled labour required, at least occasionally
• Water analysis is required to choose the most adapted type of activated carbon
• Contaminants are separated from water but not destroyed

References

AEPPLI, J.; DYER-SMITH, P. (1996): Ozonation and Granular Activated Carbon Filtration the Solution to Many Problems. In: Proceedings of the First Australian Conference of the International Ozone Association. URL [Accessed: 04.10.2011].

AMIRAULT, R.; CHOBANIAN, G.; MCCANTS, D.; MCCANN, A.; BURDETT, H.; NEPTIN,B. (2003): Activated Carbon Treatment of Drinking Water Supplies. In: Healthy Drinking Waters for Rhode Islanders. URL [Accessed: 04.10.2011]. PDF

CECEN, F. (2011): Water and Wastewater Treatment: Historical Perspective of Activated Carbon Adsorption and its Integration with Biological Processes. In: WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. URL [Accessed: 04.10.2011].

DROVAC, B. I.; SKIPTON, S.O. (2008): Drinking Water treatment: Activated Carbon. In: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension . URL [Accessed: 04.10.2011].

FOCUS TECHNOLOGY CO LTD (Editor) (2011): Water Treatment System (Active Carbon Filter). Zhangjiagang Beyond Machinery Co. Ltd.. URL [Accessed: 10.11.2011].

GCHFF (Editor) (2011): Wood based Powder Activated Carbon. Henan: Gongyi City Hongda Filter Factory (GCHFF) . URL [Accessed: 10.11.2011].

LEMLEY, A.; WAGENET, L.; KNEEN, B. (1995): Activated Carbon Treatment of Drinking Water. In: Water Treatment Notes Cornell Cooperative Extension. URL [Accessed: 04.10.2011]. PDF

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