clean

“Nom nom nom” Says the Cement

- Adam Clare

Our good friend algae is at it again and is cleaning smokestacks!

A mixture of hot gas rises out of a flue stack at the St. Marys Cement plant about 50 kilometres west of Waterloo. But not all the CO2-rich exhaust is vented to the open air.

Some is redirected through a 15-centimetre thick pipe connected to the side of the stack. The pipe carries the gas into a high-tech facility where a species of algae from the neighbouring Thames River uses photosynthesis to absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen in return.

“It’s a small model of what a big full-scale facility could be,” says Martin Vroegh, environment manager with St. Marys Cement Inc., headquartered in Toronto. The algae project, which went live last fall, is believed to be the first in the world to demonstrate the capture of CO2 from a cement plant.

The idea, Vroegh explained, is to turn CO2 into a commodity rather than treat it as a liability. The CO2-consuming algae will be continually harvested, dried using waste heat from the plant, and then burned as a fuel inside the plant’s cement kilns. Alternatively, the green goop can be processed into biofuels for the company’s truck fleet.

Keep reading at The Star.

Thanks Mike!

Mariners Know How to Cook – and Clean!

- Adam Clare

When out at sea one must make the most of what one has, so chefs are put into a situation in which they need to ensure all their cooking gear and serving gear survives rough seas. It’s lucky for us that they have shared their tips for keeping equipment clean and in ship-shape! These tips are good for anyone who uses a kitchen!

Dishes or Plates:

Cracked: For hairline cracks, put the plate in a pan of milk and boil for 45 minutes. The crack should disappear: if not, it was probably worse than you originally thought.

Greasy: Soak in hot water with baking soda. Chemically, baking soda plus grease equals soap, not soap to wash the baby mind you, but soap just the same.

Smelly: Wash them in salty water, or use a little ammonia in hot soapy water. You can also add a little ground mustard to the water.

Stained: Soak overnight in a mixture of hot water and soda. Then rub in a vinegar moisten cloth dipped in salt. This works very well with tea stains.

Read more tips at Marine Catering – Best Practices

Self-Cleaning Solar Panels

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Solar panels work best outside and as a result nature tends to get dust, dirt, grime, and such on the panels which lower the efficiency of the panels. Now some researchers have accidentally found a way to have self-cleaning solar panels to cut back on maintenance costs and increase efficiency.

Molecular microbiology and biotech professor Ehud Gazit and his team research ways to control peptide atoms and molecules. People with Alheimer’s disease have a peptide called beta amyloid found in the plaques that form in their brains. While working on self-assembling nano-tubules in the lab, the scientists made an interesting discovery.

They got the peptides to self-assemble in a vacuum, forming tiny tubes that look like grass. The resulting nanocoating repels dust and water, which would be useful for protecting desert solar arrays, reducing maintenance. Plus, the material has potential as a super-capacitor, which could give lithium batteries more kick. The assembly technique is detailed in Nature Nanotechnology

Keep reading about it at Discovery.

Collaborate for a Clean Energy Revolution

- Adam Clare

Business Week has a short editorial on why collaboration is needed for future sustainable economic growth. Essentially, in order to make the future a better place we ought to share our knowledge – sounds good to me!

“The key to our prosperity in the 21st century lies in our ability to nurture our intellectual capital in science and engineering” to produce “breakthroughs on energy,” Energy Dept. chief Chu said earlier this year, as we did with semiconductors, computers, and biotech. But entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on this international nurturing—even those with killer IP—face a ticking clock and fierce competition. As VantagePoint Venture Partners CEO and Managing Partner Alan Salzman told us recently, “In a world that’s innovating quickly, the life cycle of IP is short.”

Clean the Air While Biking – With Plants

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

Here’s a neat idea to clean the air while getting around town – build a bicycle with a plant box. You can follow the complete instructions at the link, but it looks like it takes a bit of work. I’m sure it’s a pleasure to ride with the smell of fresh herbs or flowers under your nose.

Plant bike

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