GT/ Controlling bubbles to sort materials
Tags: Sustainability, Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Green Technology, Green Energy

TL;DR

A new way to control the motion of bubbles might one day help separate useful metals from useless dirt using much less energy and water than is currently needed.

With the addition of sensors and enhanced communication tools, providing lightweight, portable power has become even more challenging. New research demonstrated a new approach to turning thermal energy into electricity that could provide compact and efficient power.

Researchers have discovered a massive enzyme complex from a methanogenic archaeon that directly transfers electrons from the electron bifurcation reaction to CO2 reduction and fixation. Their detailed insights into these efficient energy-transforming processes may open new possibilities for sustainable biotechnological development.

Using a novel modelling approach, new research reveals the location and intensity of key threats to biodiversity on land and identifies priority areas across the world to help inform conservation decision making at national and local levels.

Researchers create thin film polymer membranes capable of separating fluoride from chloride and other ions. Targeted ion selectivity by the filtering membranes could have important implications for water purification, environmental remediation and industrial production.

The speed at which deadwood decomposes in forests depends on the climate as well as on fungi and insects. An international research team has now determined the annual contribution made by deadwood to the global carbon cycle and quantified the importance of insects in the decomposition of wood.

For many, an increase in living standards would require an increase in energy provision. At the same time, meeting current climate goals under the Paris Agreement would benefit from lower energy use. Researchers have assessed how much energy is needed to provide the global poor with a decent life and have found that this can be reconciled with efforts to meet climate targets.

A new study suggests corals may be able to cope with climate change in the coming decades better than previously thought — but will still struggle with ever-faster rates of climate change.

Climate change will significantly alter future patterns of flooding, according to a new study. Although future increases in moderate storms won’t necessarily lead to more runoff in many regions, extreme storms will generate more devastating and frequent flooding.

Judiciously decomposing organic matter from 700 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,200 degrees F, without oxygen — a process known as pyrolysis — and retaining nutrients from dairy lagoons can transform manure into a manageable, ecologically friendly biochar fertilizer, according to new research.

New research finds that Indigenous Peoples and local communities provide the best long-term outcomes for conservation. The research team studied the outcomes of 169 conservation projects around the world — primarily across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

And more!

Green Technology Market

Green technology is an applicable combination of advanced tools and solutions to conserve natural resources and environment, minimize or mitigate negative impacts from human activities on the environment, and ensure sustainability development. Green technology is also referred to as clean technology or environmental technology which includes technologies, such as IoT, AI, analytics, blockchain, digital twin, security, and cloud, which collect, integrate, and analyze data from various real-time data sources, such as sensors, cameras, and Global Positioning System (GPS).

Green technology, also known as sustainable technology, protects the environment by using various forms of sustainable energy. Some of the best examples of green technologies include solar panels, LED lighting, wind energy, electric vehicles, vertical farming, and composting.

The global Green Technology and Sustainability market size to grow from USD 11.2 billion in 2020 to USD 36.6 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.6% during the forecast period. The growing consumer and industrial interest for the use of clean energy resources to conserve environment and increasing use of Radio Frequency Identification sensors across industries are driving the adoption of green technology and sustainability solutions and services in the market.

The blockchain segment is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR: Energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining has caused a spike in carbon emission, and hence blockchain is capable of driving innovation in the field of green technology.

Latest News

Latest Research

by Qiang Guo, Yuxuan Zhang, Azin Padash, Kenan Xi, Thomas M. Kovar, Christopher M. Boyce in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

A new way to control the motion of bubbles from researchers at Columbia Engineering might one day help separate useful metals from useless dirt using much less energy and water than is currently needed.

When mining for metals such as the copper used in most electronics and the lithium used in many batteries, only a small fraction of the material that is mined is useful metal, with the vast majority just useless dirt-like particles.

“We have to separate the useful metals from the useless particles, and we do this by blowing air bubbles up through them,” said Chris Boyce, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Columbia Engineering. However, “this process utilizes a large amount of energy and water, causing climate change and water shortages, thus creating problems we are trying to prevent. We have this issue in part because we currently cannot control the motion of these bubbles.”

Particle contact force normalized by particle weight during two vibration cycles obtained from discrete particle simulations. The simulated particles have properties ρp = 2500 kg/m3 and dp = 238 μm. The vibration frequency and amplitude are 5 Hz and 8 mm, respectively.

Now Boyce and his colleagues reveal that if they vibrate these particles while blowing air up through them, the normally chaotic motion of these bubbles becomes orderly and controllable. The vibrations cause the particles to quickly shift between solid-like to fluid-like behavior, which in turn helps structure the bubbles into regularly spaced triangular arrays.

“I think the simple addition of vibration to go from chaos to order is beautiful,” Boyce said.

Snapshots of local solids volume fraction during two gas flow oscillation cycles predicted by continuum gas-solid flow modeling using different constitutive models: (A) Schaeffer model (6), (B) Srivastava and Sundaresan model (7) and © the proposed model. The simulated solids phase has properties ρp = 2500 kg/m3 and dp = 238 μm.

Having a way to control the behavior of these bubbles can help scale up and optimize separation techniques. “We expect that the ability to create structure in flows can reduce energy and water use in mining as well as improve the efficiency of many clean energy processes,” Boyce said.

The researchers now aim to apply this structured bubbling to sustainable mining separation techniques.