Using P.I.P. to strengthen roads: Plastic incinerated by plastic
People have become accustomed to single-use plastics. These are plastics that are used once only and are then thrown away or recycled. A piece of plastic can only be recycled 2-3 times before it is of bad quality and can no longer be of use. (Achyut K. Panda, 2019). Plastic waste fills up landfills and oceans, becoming hazardous and harmful to wildlife, while emitting greenhouse gasses. Alternatives, such as metal straws and paper bags have turned out inefficient and plastic is still a great need in society. Another way of getting rid of waste plastic is to burn it. Fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas are being utilised to burn plastic in industry. This causes many harmful emissions, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide released from burning the plastic. It results in more damage being done than just leaving the plastic in a landfill. These emissions can be cleaned before being released into the atmosphere. Plastic is made of petroleum, so when it is burned it is converted back into a fuel. Plastic can be burned under controlled conditions to create a fuel source that can be used, thereby utilising the waste plastic. The research conducted aims to investigate the use of plastic waste to burn other plastic to create a renewable fuel source and to eliminate plastic waste.
朽木生花-初探以中藥萃取液對木材染色之防蟲抑菌效果
In our experiment, we used traditional Chinese medicine to dye on cheap wood, in addition to avoiding the impact of chemical paint on human body; After dyeing, the color and texture quality of the wood are improved, which makes cheap wood have higher price and improves the value of wood; At the same time, it can reduce the felling of slow growing precious wood, which has the functions of environmental protection, earth love and carbon saving. The test material was pretreated with hydrogen peroxide and surfactant, and the bleaching effect was obvious. After dyed with different Chinese medicinal, soak in strong acid and alkali solution for 15 minutes, which shows that strong acid and acid treatment is not allowed. On the other hand, after 15 minutes of immersion in detergent, the color difference value is less than 2, and the rubbing fastness is above grade 4. In the bacteriostasis experiment, no fungus grew in the first 3 days, and it did not grow in the 12th day. In the anti-termite experiment, the mortality rate on the fifth day was 65% for Lithospermum and 83.8% for Wolfberry, and the other groups had a good effect of total elimination. While plastic products have a great impact on the environment, wood that is dyed or modified with natural colored dye, its environmental value far exceeds the human visual perception.
surgical masks and microplastics in our airways
The surgical mask has been our daily companion since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. The nonwovens (outer layers, not the filter membrane) from which the surgical mask is constructed consist of very long and thin polypropylene fibers. This leads to the question of whether microplastics are released during breathing through the surgical mask, which could enter the respiratory tract or the lungs. This would have a negative impact on our health, depending on the size of the detached fiber fragments - the smaller the worse because they can enter much deeper in our respiratory tract. In order to investigate the question of whether fiber fragments are released during breathing through a surgical mask, a filtration device was built. The filters were examined under an optical microscope after filtration. If fiber fragments would detach from the surgical mask, they would be found on the filter. Different surgical masks were tested, those that were not worn at all to surgical masks that were worn all day. It was found that fiber fragments were coming off the surgical masks. There were different fiber fragment types. Some fiber fragments were still undamaged (exhibited nice fractures), while others were frayed. Clump-like fragments occurred, but also smaller fine fiber fragments. All these different fiber fragments had a certain size, so that they could be called microplastics. The remarkable result of the whole study is that there is a direct correlation between the wearing time of the surgical mask and the number of detaching fiber fragments. In the case of the unworn surgical masks, 10 times fewer fiber fragments occurred during filtration than in the case of the surgical masks that were worn all day.