Category Research

WHAT IS RESEARCH OF MAKING CEMENT FROM FOOD WASTE BY JAPANEES?

Food waste is a huge problem worldwide. In Japan alone, the edible food waste produced in 2019 amounts to 5.7 million tons. While their government aims to reduce that to around 2.7 million tons by 2030, there are others who are working on the same problem differently. Researchers from Tokyo University, for instance, have found a new method to create cement from food waste.

In addition to addressing the issue of food waste, the researchers also hope to reduce global warming in this way. Apart from the estimate that cement production accounts for 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, there is also the fact that wasted food materials rotting in landfills emit methane. By using these materials to make cement, scientists hope to reduce global warming.

The researchers borrowed a heat pressing concept that they had employed to pulverise wood particles to make concrete. By using simple mixers and compressors that they could buy online, the researchers used a three-step process of drying. pulverising, and compressing to turn wood particles into concrete.

Heat pressing concept

Following this success, they decided to do the same to food waste. Months of failures followed as they tried to get the cement to bind by tuning the temperature and pressure. The researchers say that this was the toughest part of the process as different food stuff requires different temperatures and pressure levels.

The researchers were able to make cement using tea leaves, coffee grounds, Chinese cabbage, orange and onion peels, and even lunch-box leftovers. To make this cement waterproof and protect it from being eaten by rodents and other pests, the scientists suggest coatings of lacquer.

Cement that can be eaten!

Additionally, the researchers tweaked flavours with different spices to arrive at different colours, scents, and taste of the cement. Yes, you read that right. This material can even be eaten by breaking it into pieces and then boiling it.

The scientists hope that their material can be used to make edible makeshift housing materials for starters, as they are bound to be useful in times of disasters. If food cannot be delivered to evacuees, for instance, then they could maybe eat makeshift beds prepared from food cement. The food cement that they have created is reusable e and biodegradable.

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DO MUSHROOMS HAVE A VOCABULARY?

A study reveals that mushrooms (the above-ground fruit of fungi) are great communicators. When the hyphae (long, thread-like structures that form the mycelium or root network) of a wood-digesting fungi came into contact with wood, they lit up with spikes of electrical signals that reached out to the hyphae of other fungi, suggesting that fungi may use electrical transmissions to share information about food or injury.

To measure spikes in signal activity, tiny electrodes were connected to the hyphae of four fungi species ghost, caterpillar, split gill and enoki. Spikes varied in duration and length, with some lasting up to 21 hours. The clusters of electrical spikes resembled a human vocabulary of up to 50 ‘words’. However, only 15 to 20 fungal words are used frequently. The average length of each word was 5.97 ‘letters’; the English language averages 4.8 letters per word. Split-gill mushrooms produced the most diverse ‘sentences’.

While the research shows that fungi produce patterns of electric signals, there’s no way to tell what they are talking about. Comparing the electrical impulses to human speech is notable, but some researchers say that it requires more research.

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CAN WE FILTER SALT WATER TO MAKE IT DRINKABLE?

Potable water for all still remains a dream as there are several people without easy access to safe drinking water. MIT researchers have come up with a portable desalination unit that can remove particles and salts even from seawater to generate drinking water. The results of their research has been published in Environmental Science and Technology.

Push of a button

The suitcase-sized device that they have developed weighs less than 10 kg. requires less power to operate than a cell phone charger and can even be driven by a small solar panel. Generating water that exceeds World Health Organisation quality standards, the technology is packed in a user-friendly way and runs with the push of a button.

Most commercially available portable desalination units require high pressure pumps to push water through filters. As it is impossible to miniaturise filters without compromising on the energy efficiency, the researchers took to alternative methods.

ICP and electro-dialysis

The researchers employed a technique called iron concentration polarisation (ICP). The ICP process applies an electric field to membranes placed above and below a channel of water. ICP uses less energy than other techniques and the process removes both dissolved and suspended solids.

ICP, however, isn’t foolproof and does not always remove all the salts. To counter this, a second process of electro-dialysis was also incorporated in the device. With the help of machine learning, the ideal combination of ICP and electro-dialysis modules were found out. These modules were then shrunk and stacked to improve their energy efficiency and also to fit them within a portable device.

Following successful lab experiments where drinking water was produced from water sources with different salinity and turbidity levels, the device was then field tested at Boston’s Carson Beach. The device was able to fill a plastic drinking cup with drinking water in about half an hour.

Improve production rate

While the water produced thus is of good quality, the current prototype generates only 0.3 litres of drinking water per hour and consumes 20 watts of power per litre. Enhancing the energy efficiency and improving the production rate are foremost in the minds of those who wish to commercialise the technology.

Picture Credit : Google