Tag: water

Scientists Unveil Game-Changing Nanoplastic Removal Technology

[ad_1]

“Our strategy uses a small amount of designer solvent to absorb plastic particles from a large volume of water,” said Gary Baker, an associate professor in the University of Missouri’s Department of Chemistry. Credit: Sam O’Keefe/University of Missouri

A team at the University of Missouri has devised a method to eliminate most nanoplastics from water using eco-friendly solvents, suitable for both fresh and saltwater applications.

Nanoplasticst are an emerging enemy of human health. Much smaller in size than the diameter of an average human hair, nanoplastics are invisible to the naked eye.

Linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in people, nanoplastics continue to build up, largely unnoticed, in the world’s bodies of water. The challenge remains to develop a cost-effective solution to get rid of nanoplastics while leaving clean water behind.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a revolutionary liquid-based solution that eliminates more than 98% of these microscopic plastic particles from water. This method, detailed in new study published in ACS Applied Engineering Materials, promises significant advancements in water purification technology.

Gary Baker, an associate professor in the University of Missouri’s Department of Chemistry, looks at a bottle of a new liquid-based solution that eliminates more than 98% of microscopic plastic particles from water. Credit: Sam O’Keefe/University of Missouri

“Nanoplastics can disrupt aquatic ecosystems and enter the food chain, posing risks to both wildlife and humans,” said Piyuni Ishtaweera, a recent alumna who led the study while earning her doctorate in nano and materials chemistry at Mizzou. “In layman’s terms, we’re developing better ways to remove contaminants such as nanoplastics from water.”

Innovative Purification Methods

The novel method — using water-repelling solvents made from natural ingredients — not only offers a practical solution to the pressing issue of nanoplastic pollution but also paves the way for further research and development in advanced water purification technologies.

Once mixed with water and allowed to reseparate, the solvent floats back to the surface, carrying the nanoplastics within its molecular structure. Credit: Sam O’Keefe/University of Missouri

“Our strategy uses a small amount of designer solvent to absorb plastic particles from a large volume of water,” said Gary Baker, an associate professor in Mizzou’s Department of Chemistry and the study’s corresponding author. “Currently, the capacity of these solvents is not well understood. In future work, we aim to determine the maximum capacity of the solvent. Additionally, we will explore methods to recycle the solvents, enabling their reuse multiple times if necessary.”

Scaling and Future Applications

Initially, the solvent sits on the water’s surface the way oil floats on water. Once mixed with water and allowed to reseparate, the solvent floats back to the surface, carrying the nanoplastics within its molecular structure.

In the lab, the researchers simply use a pipette to remove the nanoplastic-laden solvent, leaving behind clean, plastic-free water. Baker said future studies will work to scale up the entire process so that it can be applied to larger bodies of water like lakes and, eventually, oceans.

This illustration outlines the two-step extraction method. Credit: Gary Baker

Implications and Next Steps

Ishtaweera, who now works at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in St. Louis, noted that the new method is effective in both fresh and saltwater.

“These solvents are made from safe, non-toxic components, and their ability to repel water prevents additional contamination of water sources, making them a highly sustainable solution,” she said. “From a scientific perspective, creating effective removal methods fosters innovation in filtration technologies, provides insights into nanomaterial behavior and supports the development of informed environmental policies.”

The Mizzou team tested five different sizes of polystyrene-based nanoplastics, a common type of plastic used in the making of Styrofoam cups. Their results outperformed previous studies that largely focused on just a single size of plastic particles.

Reference: “Nanoplastics Extraction from Water by Hydrophobic Deep Eutectic Solvents” by Piyuni Ishtaweera, Colleen L. Ray, Wyland Filley, Garrett Cobb and Gary A. Baker, 4 June 2024, ACS Applied Engineering Materials.
DOI: 10.1021/acsaenm.4c00159

[ad_2]

Source link

August 18, 2024
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life

[ad_1]

After 30 days, the algae in the middle were still unicellular. As the scientists put algae from thicker and thicker rings under the microscope, however, they found larger clumps of cells. The very largest were wads of hundreds. But what interested Simpson the most were mobile clusters of four to 16 cells, arranged so that their flagella were all on the outside. These clusters moved around by coordinating the movement of their flagella, the ones at the back of the cluster holding still, the ones at the front wriggling.

Comparing the speed of these clusters to the single cells in the middle revealed something interesting. “They all swim at the same speed,” Simpson said. By working together as a collective, the algae could preserve their mobility. “I was really pleased,” he said. “With the coarse mathematical framework, there were a few predictions I could make. To actually see it empirically means there’s something to this idea.”

Intriguingly, when the scientists took these little clusters from the high-viscosity gel and put them back at low viscosity, the cells stuck together. They remained this way, in fact, for as long as the scientists continued to watch them, about 100 more generations. Clearly, whatever changes they underwent to survive at high viscosity were hard to reverse, Simpson said—perhaps a move toward evolution rather than a short-term shift.

ILLUSTRATION
Caption: In gel as viscous as ancient oceans, algal cells began working together. They clumped up and coordinated the movements of their tail-like flagella to swim more quickly. When placed back in normal viscosity, they remained together.
Credit: Andrea Halling

Modern-day algae are not early animals. But the fact that these physical pressures forced a unicellular creature into an alternate way of life that was hard to reverse feels quite powerful, Simpson said. He suspects that if scientists explore the idea that when organisms are very small, viscosity dominates their existence, we could learn something about conditions that might have led to the explosion of large forms of life.

A Cell’s Perspective

As large creatures, we don’t think much about the thickness of the fluids around us. It’s not a part of our daily lived experience, and we are so big that viscosity doesn’t impinge on us very much. The ability to move easily—relatively speaking—is something we take for granted. From the time Simpson first realized that such limits on movement could be a monumental obstacle to microscopic life, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Viscosity may have mattered quite a lot in the origins of complex life, whenever that was.

“[This perspective] allows us to think about the deep-time history of this transition,” Simpson said, “and what was going on in Earth’s history when all the obligately complicated multicellular groups evolved, which is relatively close to each other, we think.”

Other researchers find Simpson’s ideas quite novel. Before Simpson, no one seems to have thought very much about organisms’ physical experience of being in the ocean during Snowball Earth, said Nick Butterfield of the University of Cambridge, who studies the evolution of early life. He cheerfully noted, however, that “Carl’s idea is fringe.” That’s because the vast majority of theories about Snowball Earth’s influence on the evolution of multicellular animals, plants, and algae focus on how levels of oxygen, inferred from isotope levels in rocks, could have tipped the scales in one way or another, he said.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 11, 2024
A slight curve helps rocks make the biggest splash

[ad_1]

Flat rocks may not deliver the most dramatic splash

Julian Brooks/Alamy

When you want to find a rock that will make the biggest possible splash, you might do well looking for one that is ever so slightly curved. This will produce the largest impact force when it hits water, according to a finding that overturns a long-held belief in physics.

The discovery was made by Jesse Belden at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island and his colleagues, who set out to examine the idea that a flat object produces the greatest impact on water.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 1, 2024
Unlocking the Secrets of Ice With Antifreeze and Advanced Microscopy

[ad_1]

Researchers have made a breakthrough in observing the ice-liquid interface by using antifreeze and a refrigerated microscope. They discovered that ice in antifreeze remains flat with minimal structural changes compared to its rapid transformation in water. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com

A new study has successfully observed the structure of ice in antifreeze, revealing a flat surface with occasional molecular steps, enhancing our understanding of ice’s interaction with liquids.

Ice in nature is surrounded by liquid most of the time, and therefore it is key to understand how ice and liquid interact. A Kobe University and Institute for Molecular Science study could now for the first time directly observe the precise shape of ice at the interface between ice and liquid – by using antifreeze and a refrigerated microscope.

When we slide on ice, when snowflakes form, when we lick ice cream, the surface of the ice is always covered with liquid water, and understanding the interaction between the liquid water and the ice is vital to understanding the whole phenomenon. However, because ice and water quickly transform into each other, it has been impossible to directly observe the interface between the two.

To get closer to understanding how ice interacts with its surrounding liquid, researchers led by Kobe University’s Hiroshi Onishi decided to try the next best thing. He says: “We came up with the idea of measuring ice immersed in antifreeze colder than 0°C. This way, the ice doesn’t melt and the interface doesn’t move, and it should be possible to make precise observations.”

“Through various trial and error processes, we found that we had to cool the entire microscope system in a cooling box, and it took some ingenuity to ensure that the atomic force microscope, a precision measuring instrument, could operate stably at sub-zero temperatures,” explains Hiroshi Onishi. Credit: Hiroshi Onishi

Even so, the researchers struggled to get good measurements of the ice. “Through various trial and error processes, we found that we had to cool the entire microscope system in a cooling box, and it took some ingenuity to ensure that the atomic force microscope, a precision measuring instrument, could operate stably at sub-zero temperatures,” explains the Kobe University researcher.

In The Journal of Chemical Physics, the group now published their results. They found that, while ice without surrounding liquid features so-called “frost pillars” about 20 nanometers tall, in antifreeze the ice is perfectly flat with occasional steps only one molecular layer high. “We think that the flat surface is formed through … partial dissolution and recrystallization of the ice surface in the 1-octanol liquid (the antifreeze),” the researchers write in the paper.

While ice without surrounding liquid (A) features so-called “frost pillars” about 20 nanometers tall, in 1-octanol antifreeze (B) the ice is perfectly flat with occasional steps only one molecular layer high. In different liquids (C: 1-hexanol. D: 1-butanol) with similar properties, the ice surface looks different in each case, underscoring the importance of directly measuring the interface. Credit: Ryo Yanagisawa

Onishi and his team also tried different liquids, all alcohols like 1-octanol. And even though all liquids they tried have similar properties, they observed that the ice surface looks different in each case, underscoring the importance of directly measuring the interface. In addition, they investigated the “hardness” of the ice surface under 1-octanol and found that the ice is much harder than previously estimated using less direct methods.

The researchers hope that their results will invite further study of the ice-liquid interface, but they have also set clear goals for their own future work saying: “We expect to increase the resolution of the microscope to single water molecules and use measurement methods other than atomic force microscopy. In this way, we hope to expand the range of possible applications of molecular-level measurements of the ice-antifreeze interface.”

Reference: “The interface between ice and alcohols analyzed by atomic force microscopy” by Ryo Yanagisawa, Tadashi Ueda, Kei-ichi Nakamoto, Zhengxi Lu, Hiroshi Onishi and Taketoshi Minato, 9 July 2024, The Journal of Chemical Physics.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0211501

This research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan (grants JPMXP1222MS0008 and JPMXP1223MS0001) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grants 21K18935 and 23H05448). It was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 9, 2024
New Phosphorescent Probe Unmasks Microstructures in Water Ice

[ad_1]

New research using phosphorescence spectroscopy shows how small organics like ethylene glycol disrupt the crystalline structure of water ice, offering insights into ice’s physical and chemical properties. Credit: Prof. Guoqing Zhang’s team

New research using phosphorescence spectroscopy shows how small organics like ethylene glycol disrupt the crystalline structure of water ice, offering insights into ice’s physical and chemical properties.

Ice is believed to have played a crucial role in the emergence of life. One reason is that organic molecules can be incorporated into the gaps between the crystal lattice by orderly arranged water molecules, leading to the concentration of organic compounds. However, current methods for studying organic molecules in ice, such as Raman and infrared spectroscopy, are mainly limited to absorption-based spectroscopic techniques, restricting measurement sensitivity.

A research team led by Prof. Guoqing Zhang, Prof. Shiyong Liu, Prof. Xiaoguo Zhou, and Researcher Xuepeng Zhang from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) developed a water-ice microstructures detection method using organic phosphorescent probes and phosphorescence spectroscopy. Their works were published in Angewandte Chemie.

A New Method for Analyzing Ice’s Organic Molecules

The team proposed an emission-based method to study organic molecules in water ice. They used the hydration state of a phosphorescent probe, acridinium iodide (ADI), to indicate the microstructural changes of water ice (i.e., crystalline vs. glassy). The microstructures of water ice can be significantly dictated by a trace amount of water-soluble organic molecules. Specifically, if water ice maintains amorphous at low temperatures, the AD⁺ cation and I^–anion of the ADI probe will be separated by bound water molecules, exhibiting long-lived phosphorescence and a visible greenish-yellow afterglow. While in ordered crystalline ice, ADI probe molecules aggregate, inducing short-lived red phosphorescence through the heavy atom effect of iodine.

The Raman spectroscopy and cryoSEM Images of the ADI aqueous system. Credit: Prof. Guoqing Zhang’s team

Spectral Analysis Enhances Understanding of Ice Microstructures

The emission spectra revealed distinct spectroscopic changes in aqueous solution of ADI upon the addition of ethylene glycol (EG) small molecules and monodispersed EG polymers (PDI=1). The addition of trace amounts of EG (0.1%) leads to the emergence of the fluorescence band around 480 nm, accompanied by more intense phosphorescence band with well-resolved vibronic progressions at 555, 598, and 648 nm. The spectral results indicated that the addition of EG led to the transformation of ADI molecules in water ice from undissolved aggregates to dissolved ion states.

Verifying Phosphorescence Findings With Advanced Imaging Techniques

To corroborate the conclusions of phosphorescence spectroscopy, low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (Cryo-SEM) images showed that the addition of trace EG into the water ice containing ADI resulted in local areas with porous microstructures. Meanwhile, low-temperature Raman (LT-Raman) spectra confirmed that the addition of trace EG was sufficient to cause a shift in the O-H vibration of water ice from a low-frequency crystalline state to a high-frequency glassy state.

Implications for Water-Ice-Organics Interaction Studies

This study discovered that adding trace amounts of small or large molecular organics to water can significantly inhibit the crystalline order of water ice by using more convenient and sensitive phosphorescence spectroscopy. Moreover, the phosphorescence spectroscopy can also reveal morphological differences in water-ice microstructures when trace organics with different structures and same concentration are added into water, which is consistent with Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy, providing a new technical mean for studying water-ice-organics interactions at lower concentration and wider temperature range.

Reference: “Water-Ice Microstructures and Hydration States of Acridinium Iodide Studied by Phosphorescence Spectroscopy” by Hongping Liu, Hao Su, Ning Chen, Jie Cen, Jiajia Tan, Baicheng Zhang, Xiaoyu Chen, Aoyuan Cheng, Shengquan Fu, Xiaoguo Zhou, Shilin Liu, Xuepeng Zhang, Shiyong Liu, Yi Luo and Guoqing Zhang, 11 April 2024, Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202405314

[ad_2]

Source link

July 7, 2024
New Catalyst Unveils the Hidden Power of Water

[ad_1]

Hydrogen is a key player in the effort to decarbonize our society, but most of its production currently relies on fossil fuel-derived processes like methane reforming, which emit significant carbon dioxide. The development of green hydrogen via water electrolysis, particularly through advanced technologies like proton-exchange-membrane (PEM), is hindered by the need for rare catalysts like iridium. However, a new breakthrough by ICFO researchers using an iridium-free catalyst shows promise for sustainable and efficient green hydrogen production at industrial scales, potentially revolutionizing the field. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Researchers have developed a breakthrough iridium-free catalyst for water electrolysis, paving the way for sustainable and large-scale green hydrogen production.

Hydrogen offers significant potential as both a chemical and energy carrier for decarbonizing society. Unlike traditional fuels, using hydrogen does not produce carbon dioxide. However, most hydrogen currently produced derives from methane, a fossil fuel, through a process called methane reforming, which unfortunately emits a considerable amount of carbon dioxide. Consequently, developing scalable alternatives for producing green hydrogen is essential.

Water electrolysis offers a path to generate green hydrogen which can be powered by renewables and clean electricity. This process needs cathode and anode catalysts to accelerate the otherwise inefficient reactions of water splitting and recombination into hydrogen and oxygen, respectively. From its early discovery in the late 18^th century, the water electrolysis has matured into different technologies. One of the most promising implementations of water electrolysis is the proton-exchange-membrane (PEM), which can produce green hydrogen by combining high rates and high energy efficiency.

Infograph that explains the concept of a PEM water electrolyzer, how it works, the new technique implemented by the team and the results they obtained. Credit: ICFO

To date, water electrolysis, and in particular PEM, has required catalysts based on scarce, rare elements, such as platinum and iridium, among others. Only a few compounds combine the required activity and stability at the harsh chemical environment imposed by this reaction. This is especially challenging in the case of anode catalysts, which have to operate at highly corrosive acidic environments – conditions where only iridium oxides have shown stable operation at the required industrial conditions. But iridium is one of the scarcest elements on earth.

In search of possible solutions, a team of scientists has recently taken an important step to find alternatives to iridium catalysts. This multidisciplinary team has managed to develop a novel way to confer activity and stability to an iridium-free catalyst by harnessing so far unexplored properties of water. The new catalyst achieves, for the first time, stability in PEM water electrolysis at industrial conditions without the use of iridium.

This breakthrough, published in Science, has been carried out by ICFO researchers Ranit Ram, Dr. Lu Xia, Dr. Anku Guha, Dr. Viktoria Golovanova, Dr. Marinos Dimitropoulos, Aparna M. Das and Adrián Pinilla-Sánchez, and led by Professor at ICFO Dr. F. Pelayo García de Arquer; and includes important collaborations from the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), The Catalan Institute of Science and Technology (ICN₂), French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Diamond Light Source, and the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM).

Dealing with the acidity

Combining activity and stability in a highly acidic environment is challenging. Metals from the catalyst tend to dissolve, as most materials are not thermodynamically stable at low pH and applied potential, in a water environment. Iridium oxides combine activity and stability at these harsh conditions, and that is why they are the prevalent choice for anodes in proton-exchange water electrolysis.

The search for alternatives to iridium is not only an important applied challenge, but a fundamental one. Intense research on the look for non-iridium catalysts has led to new insights on the reaction mechanisms and degradation, especially with the use of probes that could study the catalysts during operation combined with computational models. These led to promising results using manganese and cobalt oxide-based materials, and exploiting different structures, composition, and dopants, to modify the physicochemical properties of the catalysts.

While insightful, most of these studies were performed in fundamental not-scalable reactors and operating at softer conditions that are far from the final application, especially in terms of current density. Demonstrating activity and stability with non-iridium catalysts in PEM reactors and at PEM-relevant operating conditions (high current density) had to date remained elusive.

From left to right: Lu Xia, Ranit Ram and Anku Guha, in the lab with the device. Credit: ICFO

To overcome this, the ICFO, ICIQ, ICN₂, CNRS, Diamond Light Source, and INAM researchers came up with a new approach in the design of non-iridium catalysts, achieving activity and stability in acid media. Their strategy, based on cobalt (very abundant and cheap), was quite different from the common paths.

“Conventional catalyst design typically focuses on changing the composition or the structure of the employed materials. Here, we took a different approach. We designed a new material that actively involves the ingredients of the reaction (water and its fragments) in its structure. We found that the incorporation of water and water fragments into the catalyst structure can be tailored to shield the catalyst at these challenging conditions, thus enabling stable operation at the high current densities that are relevant for industrial applications,” explains Professor at ICFO, García de Arquer. With their technique, consisting in a delamination process that exchanges part of the material by water, the resulting catalyst presents as a viable alternative to iridium-based catalysts.

A new approach: the delamination process

To obtain the catalyst, the team looked into a particular cobalt oxide: cobalt-tungsten oxide (CoWO₄), or in short CWO. On this starting material, they designed a delamination process using basic water solutions whereby tungsten oxides (WO₄^2-) would be removed from the lattice and exchanged by water (H₂O) and hydroxyl (OH^–) groups in a basic environment. This process could be tuned to incorporate different amounts of H₂O and OH^– into the catalyst, which would then be incorporated onto the anode electrodes.

The team combined different photon-based spectroscopies to understand this new class of material during operation. Using infrared Raman and x-rays, among others, they were able to assess the presence of trapped water and hydroxyl groups, and to obtain insights on their role in conferring activity and stability for water splitting in acid. “Being able to detect the trapped water was really challenging for us,” continues leading co-author Dr. Anku Guha. “Using Raman spectroscopy and other light-based techniques we finally saw that there was water in the sample. But it was not “free” water, it was confined water”; something that had a profound impact on performance.

ICFO family picture: from left to right: F. Pelayo García de Arquer, Marinos Dimitropoulos, Lu Xia, Aparna M. Das, Viktoria Holovanova, Anku Guha, and Ranit Ram. Credit: ICFO

From these insights, they started working closely with collaborators and experts in catalyst modeling. “The modeling of activated materials is challenging as large structural rearrangements take place. In this case, the delamination employed in the activation treatment increases the number of active sites and changes the reaction mechanism rendering the material more active. Understanding these materials requires a detailed mapping between experimental observations and simulations,” says Prof. Núria López from ICIQ. Their calculations, led by a leading co-author Dr. Hind Benzidi, were crucial to understand how the delaminated materials, shielded by water, were not only thermodynamically protected against dissolution in highly acidic environments, but also active.

But, how is this possible? Basically, the removal of tungsten-oxide leaves a hole behind, exactly where it was previously located. Here is where the “magic” happens: water and hydroxide, which are vastly present in the medium, spontaneously fill the gap. This in turn shields the sample, as it renders the cobalt dissolution an unfavorable process, effectively holding the catalyst components together.

Then, they assembled the delaminated catalyst into a PEM reactor. The initial performance was truly remarkable, achieving higher activity and stability than any prior art. “We increased five times the current density, arriving to 1 A/cm² – a very challenging landmark in the field. But, the key is, that we also reached more than 600 hours of stability at such high density. So, we have reached the highest current density and also the highest stability for non-iridium catalysts,” shares leading co-author Dr. Lu Xia.

“At the beginning of the project, we were intrigued about the potential role of water itself as the elephant in the room in water electrolysis,” explains Ranit Ram, first author of the study and instigator of the initial idea. “No one before had actively tailored water and interfacial water in this way.” In the end, it turned out to be a real game-changer.

Even though the stability time is still far from the current industrial PEMs, this represents a big step towards making them not dependent on iridium or similar elements. In particular, their work brings new insights for water electrolysis PEMs design, as it highlights the potential to address catalyst engineering from another perspective; by actively exploiting the properties of water.

Towards the industrialization

The team has seen such potential in the technique that they have already applied for a patent, with the aim of scaling it up to industry levels of production. Yet, they are aware of the non-triviality of taking this step, as Prof. García de Arquer notices: “Cobalt, being more abundant than iridium, is still a very troubling material considering from where it is obtained. That is why we are working on alternatives based on manganese, nickel, and many other materials. We will go through the whole the periodic table, if necessary. And we are going to explore and try with them this new strategy to design catalysts that we have reported in our study.”

Despite the new challenges that will for sure arise, the team is convinced of the potential of this delamination process and they are all determined to pursue this goal. Ram, in particular, shares: “I have actually always wanted to advance renewable energies because it will help us as a human community to fight against climate change. I believe our studies contributed one small step in the right direction.”

Reference: “Water-hydroxide trapping in cobalt tungstate for proton exchange membrane water electrolysis” by Ranit Ram, Lu Xia, Hind Benzidi, Anku Guha, Viktoria Golovanova, Alba Garzón Manjón, David Llorens Rauret, Pol Sanz Berman, Marinos Dimitropoulos, Bernat Mundet, Ernest Pastor, Veronica Celorrio, Camilo A. Mesa, Aparna M. Das, Adrián Pinilla-Sánchez, Sixto Giménez, Jordi Arbiol, Núria López and F. Pelayo García de Arquer, 20 June 2024, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adk9849

Funding: European Commission, “la Caixa” Foundation, Generalitat de Catalunya, Ministry of Science and Innovation, Fundación BBVA

[ad_2]

Source link

June 24, 2024
The cost of building the perfect wave

[ad_1]

Surf pools’ proponents frequently point to the far larger amount of water golf courses consume to argue that opposing the pools on grounds of their water use is misguided.

PSSC, the first of the area’s three planned surf clubs to open, requires an estimated 3 million gallons per year to fill its pool; the proposed DSRT Surf holds 7 million gallons and estimates that it will use 24 million gallons per year, which includes maintenance and filtration, and accounts for evaporation. TBC’s planned 20-acre recreational lake, 3.8 acres of which will contain the surf pool, will use 51 million gallons per year, according to Riverside County documents. Unlike standard swimming pools, none of these pools need to be drained and refilled annually for maintenance, saving on potential water use. DSRT Surf also boasts about plans to offset its water use by replacing 1 million square feet of grass from an adjacent golf course with drought-tolerant plants.

Pro surfer and PSSC’s full-time “wave curator” Cheyne Magnusson watches test waves from the club’s control tower.
SPENCER LOWELL

With surf parks, “you can see the water,” says Jess Ponting, a cofounder of Surf Park Central, the main industry association, and Stoke, a nonprofit that aims to certify surf and ski resorts—and, now, surf pools—for sustainability. “Even though it’s a fraction of what a golf course is using, it’s right there in your face, so it looks bad.”

But even if it were just an issue of appearance, public perception is important when residents are being urged to reduce their water use, says Mehdi Nemati, an associate professor of environmental economics and policy at the University of California, Riverside. It’s hard to demand such efforts from people who see these pools and luxury developments being built around them, he says. “The questions come: Why do we conserve when there are golf courses or surfing … in the desert?”

(Burritt, the CVWD representative, notes that the water district “encourages all customers, not just residents, to use water responsibly” and adds that CVWD’s strategic plans project that there should be enough water to serve both the district’s golf courses and its surf pools.)

Locals opposing these projects, meanwhile, argue that developers are grossly underestimating their water use, and various engineering firms and some county officials have in fact offered projections that differ from the developers’ estimates. Opponents are specifically concerned about the effects of spray, evaporation, and other factors, which increase with higher temperatures, bigger waves, and larger pool sizes.

As a rough point of reference, Slater’s 14-acre wave pool in Lemoore, California, can lose up to 250,000 gallons of water per day to evaporation, according to Adam Fincham, the engineer who designed the technology. That’s roughly half an Olympic swimming pool.

More fundamentally, critics take issue with even debating whether surf clubs or golf courses are worse. “We push back against all of it,” says Ambriz, who organized opposition to TBC and argues that neither the pool nor an exclusive new golf course in Thermal benefits the local community. Comparing them, she says, obscures greater priorities, like the water needs of households.

[ad_2]

Source link

June 17, 2024
The largest volcanoes on Mars have frosted tips during winter

[ad_1]

A view of frost on Olympus Mons

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

As winter mornings dawn on Mars, the tips of its largest volcanoes become covered in frost, in yet another example of water on the Red Planet.

We already know that Mars has significant deposits of ice in the form of polar ice caps, and possibly buried underneath the surface at the equator, but scientists had yet to observe surface water in other Martian regions.

Now, Adomas Valantinas at Brown University in Rhode Island and his colleagues have spotted frost that appears to only form in the morning, during Martian winters, near the peaks of volcanoes in the Tharsis region, which includes some of the solar system’s largest volcanoes, such as Olympus Mons. “This is quite exciting because it tells you how dynamic Mars’s water system is, but also how water can be found in different amounts basically everywhere on Mars,” says Valantinas.

He and his team took morning pictures of the icy volcanic peaks using a colour camera aboard the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, which studies the Martian atmosphere, and spotted wide regions of blue frost. They ruled out frozen carbon dioxide, which can look similar, as the cause by calculating the surface temperatures and finding it was too warm for CO2 to freeze.

Though there is a possibility the ice is formed from gases coming out of the volcano, Valantinas and his team would it expect to see it all year round if this was the case. Instead, the fact that it only appears during the colder parts of the year, makes it more likely the frost is a result of water vapour in the atmosphere freezing out.

Knowing where ice forms on the Martian surface, especially from atmospheric processes, is vital for accurate weather prediction, says Susan Conway at the University of Nantes, France. We know that ice from the poles moves into the atmosphere, but we don’t know where it goes, she says. “This is a really neat observation, because we can actually see where it’s going.”

Topics:

[ad_2]

Source link

June 10, 2024
Why we can’t afford to ignore the world’s smallest freshwater bodies

[ad_1]

Considering they are the world’s most numerous patches of water, it is surprising that ponds are poorly understood. There are millions – possibly billions – of them. Yet for a century or so, scientists have paid them very little attention.

This neglect might not have mattered were it not for increasing evidence that ponds are extremely important habitats for wildlife. Across many landscapes, they are being shown to support more freshwater plant and animal species than rivers or lakes. From microscopic algae to water beetles, aquatic plants, amphibians and water birds, ponds have rich, diverse and distinctive communities with a disproportionate…

[ad_2]

Source link

May 29, 2024
Around half the world could lose easily accessible groundwater by 2050

[ad_1]

Reaching peak groundwater pumping could impact agriculture across the globe

Peter Bennett / Alamy

Groundwater extraction is set to peak globally within the next three decades as unsustainable pumping depletes accessible stores. This could reshape the food and water systems that serve at least half the world’s population.

Between 1960 and 2010, global groundwater extraction increased by more than 50 per cent, largely to irrigate crops. Today, one-fifth of all food is produced using groundwater. Much of this water is extracted from aquifers faster than they naturally refill, driving declining water levels. This…

[ad_2]

Source link

May 15, 2024