Earth Sciences Environmental chemistry

Floatable beads made from chitosan and cellulose acetate and enhanced with bentonite were engineered to effectively clean oil from water. The beads showed good oil adsorption capacity while remaining easy to collect from the water surface.

Scientists from City University of Hong Kong and collaborators from more than 20 countries are taking FIRST steps towards safeguarding communities most affected by climate change.

A new regional assessment shows that Southeast Asia is a major net source of greenhouse gases, with land-use change and rising fossil fuel use overwhelming natural carbon sinks, reservoirs that store carbon-containing chemical compounds for a long period.

Researchers at The University of Osaka have developed a non-precious metal catalyst for the efficient hydrogenation of biomass-derived furfural to valuable tetrahydrofuran-based compounds under mild conditions. The catalyst, consisting of nickel carbide nanoparticles supported on alumina, achieved 90% furfural conversion under ambient hydrogen pressure. This result will help advance the development of energy-efficient, cost-effective processes for the conversion of biomass to valuable materials.

Food waste accounts for about 30 per cent of Hong Kong's municipal solid waste in landfills, negatively impacting environmental ecology and wasting recyclable organic materials. To address this issue, the Zeshan Foundation has funded A Plastic Ocean Foundation in collaboration with academic partner Lingnan University’s Science Unit, and strategic partner Gaw Capital People’s Place, to launch an innovative food waste processing programme in April - the Bi-Loop Nature-Based Food Waste Regeneration Pilot Programme (the programme).

Researchers have proposed using the levels of caffeine, a common household pollutant that isn’t otherwise found in the environment, to find likely sources of leaks in wastewater systems.

A case study on the effects of open waste burning on air quality in Northwestern Greenland calls attention to the importance of no-one-left-behind sustainable air quality monitoring in the Arctic region.

Naturally formed iron oxides on the surface of plastic tubes offer an inexpensive and sustainable method to reduce arsenic contamination in crops.

- DGIST Professor Park Chi-Young's team developed photothermal porous polymer capable of ultra-fast adsorption and removal of phenolic microplastics and VOC contaminants in water - Showing the potential as a next-generation water purification material made of inexpensive raw materials, and ultra-high removal efficiency through solar-based purification process - Selected as the cover paper for the 50th edition of ‘Advanced Materials,’ the most prestigious academic journal in the field of materials in 2022

Using a CeO2 catalyst, researchers develop an effective catalytic process for the direct synthesis of polycarbonate diols without the need for dehydrating agents. The high yield, high selective process has CO2 blown at atmospheric pressure to evaporate excess water by-product allowing for a catalytic process that can be used with any substrate with a boiling point higher than water.

A recent study, affiliated with South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), has succeeded in fabricating highly alligned SnSe thin films through a low-cost and scalable solution process.

Researchers in South Korea and Singapore have, for the first time, developed a chemical probe that enables live-imaging of a type of immune cells in the brain, known as microglia, in a live animal brain.

A metal-organic framework that selectively removes impurities from natural gas could allow greater use of this cleaner fossil fuel.

Custom-made gas-sensing material could lead to inexpensive devices for real-time air quality analysis.

Nitrate deposits in the Arctic remains high even after the turn of the century, despite environmental policies adopted by neighboring countries in the late 20th century to cut nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.

The transition to renewables will take decades, so we must rush to clean up conventional fuel combustion, says Mani Sarathy.

A unique investigation highlights how excess nitrogen can trigger coral bleaching in the absence of heat stress.