Sustainable fuels
Killing two birds with one stone - Co2 and plastic waste
Although of much concern, there is a way to manage plastic as well as carbon dioxide. In fact, not just managing them, researchers from the University of Cambridge have now found a way to convert carbon dioxide and plastic waste into sustainable fuels and chemical products that can be valuable. They have demonstrated a way to turn carbon dioxide into a key building block for sustainable fuels, called syngas; and then, plastic bottles were converted into a much-used acid in cosmetics, called glycolic acid.
For carbon dioxide, the researchers sourced it from air as well as from industrial exhaust, while there are no prizes for guessing where plastic bottles were sourced from, as there is no dearth of them around. The researchers trapped carbon dioxide by running air through an alkaline solution, which allowed other gases like oxygen and nitrogen to escape through bubbles. This enables the concentration of carbon dioxide in the solution. The team developed a reactor powered by solar energy to do the conversion almost simultaneously in the system to Glycolic acid (from plastic waste) and syngas (from carbon dioxide), which can ideally be used for their respective purposes.
It is an integrated system with a photocathode and an anode, and has two compartments. One is for the solution with concentrated carbon dioxide solution to get converted into syngas, and the other is where the plastic gets converted into glycolic acid. Adding plastic waste to the system enables the contribution of electrons to carbon dioxide. In doing so, it breaks down into glycolic acid, and carbon dioxide converts to syngas. In one go, the system demonstrates taking in two harmful products — plastic waste and carbon emissions — and converting them into useful products.
sleep story
THOSE SHORT DAY-TIME NAPS COULD PLAY WONDERS FOR YOU
French Emperor Napoleon was known for it — short day-time naps lasting just ten minutes at a time. But this research, which has found such naps benefitting brain health, has come too late to see whether it benefitted him. His may not sound appropriate on a workday, but researchers from University College London and the University of the Republic in Uruguay have found that regular day-time napping is directly linked to a healthier brain with lesser chances of developing problems like dementia or other mental diseases. Although the researchers have not specified what the duration of a “short nap” should be, supportive studies have indicated that naps of 30 minutes or less provide the best short-term cognitive benefits, and napping earlier in the day is less likely to disrupt night-time sleep.
The research team employed a method using measured variations in genes to study the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome. It is called Mendeliam randomisation. They looked at 97 snippets of DNA thought to determine people’s likelihood of habitual napping. They compared measures of brain health and cognition of people who are more genetically “programmed” to nap with those who did not have these genetic variants. They used data from 3,78,932 people from the UK Biobank study, and found that, overall, people predetermined to nap had a larger total brain volume and healthier brains.
The finding adds on to earlier studies that regular daytime napping has cognitive benefits. They found that those who have short naps perform better in cognitive tests held subsequently than counterparts who those not prone to napping. In a way, the research may appear to be vindicating the lazy American comic strip character Garfield who is commonly found sleeping or lazing around. But it is not. It is about the brain benefits of short-napping.