Conquering Clear Glass

Just add borax...

No matter how many times I hear how borax is used, I am constantly amazed that there are still more ways to use borax - in the home and in industry.

The above video - from the series called How to Make Everything, a sort of YouTuber's Toaster Project - is the current (as of December when I wrote this entry, I work ahead if at all possible) status check-in on Andy's attempt to make a camera...which requires making a lens...which requires making glass...which apparently requires learning how to make toothpaste.

Man, I can't even make a sandwich...

World-first: Bio-bricks from urine

Source - https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2018-10-24-world-first-bio-bricks-from-urine

Somebody needs to drink more water.

But clearly nobody needs to come up with a more awesome idea than making fertilizer and 'cement' blocks from urine.

Some civil engineering grad students from Cape Town, South Africa have developed a process of taking urine - currently only male urine because “At the moment we’re only dealing with urine collection from male urinals because that’s socially accepted. But what about the other half of the population?” - precipitating out a solid fertilizer, then using the liquid waste to produce bio-bricks  and a secondary fertilizer.

The initial precipitation at the fertilizer-producing urinal uses calcium hydroxide to precipitate out calcium phosphate, a solid fertilizer.

Source - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213343718306043

After that, the remaining liquid heads to a secondary processing.

The bio-bricks are created through a natural process called microbial carbonate precipitation. It’s not unlike the way seashells are formed, said Lambert’s supervisor Dr Dyllon Randall, a senior lecturer in water quality engineering.

In this case, loose sand is colonised with bacteria that produce urease. An enzyme, the urease breaks down the urea in urine while producing calcium carbonate through a complex chemical reaction. This cements the sand into any shape, whether it’s a solid column, or now, for the first time, a rectangular building brick.

And the strength of the material is simply dependent on time and concentration of urea.

The strength of the bio-bricks would depend on client needs. 

“If a client wanted a brick stronger than a 40% limestone brick, you would allow the bacteria to make the solid stronger by ‘growing’ it for longer,” said Randall. “The longer you allow the little bacteria to make the cement, the stronger the product is going to be. We can optimise that process.”

The liquid waste from the bio-brick production, then, is further processed into a second fertilizer.

That's amazing, turning a waste product into three useful. As the article says, "[t]he overall scheme would effectively result in zero waste, with the urine completely converted into three useful products."

I'm guessing there are a lot of scientists who are pissed that they didn't come up with this idea themselves.

(I'm sorry...)

This improbable membrane can trap flies in a jar - and odor in a toilet

Well that's just cool.

The membrane described above can block small particles but allow larger particles through, a thoroughly non-intuitive method of filtering.

Then again, water is weird. It holds together, 'healing' itself via intermolecular forces. In this case, the addition of sodium dodecyl sulfate - something I've heard called sodium lauryl sulfate - allows the water membrane to be penetrated and then come back together.

In order to break through the membrane, particles need enough momentum (mass times velocity, natch) to break through the membrane, so larger particles have an easier time to get through. Smaller particles, then, have to be moving far faster if they're going to break through.

And automatically, people go straight to the possibility of keeping the poop smell in a toilet.

Because everyone poops.

ASM International "Roof-of-Sky" Video

I love visiting the ASM dome in Materials Park (or Novelty), OH every spring for summer camp training. It's an opportunity to see old friends, but it's also a chance to see one of world's largest free-standing geodesic dome (g'head, search out proof that it isn't). The ASM Headquarters is just a beautiful place.



Check out some beautiful photos or a video or two...

Source - Cleveland.com