Plastic: The Scourge of Cities Becoming a Resource

I firmly believe we will solve this problem - "producing useful chemicals from our plastic waster in the future" - one way or the other.

It might be because we've solved the problem of sorting and recycling plastics, it might be because we've figured out we can't solve the problem but we stop using plastics, or it might - most sadly - be because we've poisoned our world enough that we can't make any more plastics...or offspring.

I'm hopeful we solve the problem before we get to option number three.

The above video - using a chemical catalyst to separate and break down PET molecules from original plastic waste - seems hopeful, but we've heard it before, and every process has run into hurdles of upscaling the process and using it on a mixed waste stream. We're trashy people, let's be honest.

I am happy to hear, however, that lots of big companies are working on the problem. Now, if they just weren't still selling us plastic products while they were.

REDUCE...reuse...recycle...

The Bismuthsmith

I've made bismuth crystals once or twice. I'm no Todd Bollenbaugh or anything, but I'm getting there.

Even Todd, however, isn't any sort of Bismuthsmith. He - actually, his name is Kyle Lauzon according to his Facebook page - seems to be an absolute bismuth master.

He makes tons of gorgeous hopper crystals and casts loads of varied figures.

...and he seems able to control the oxidation rate well enough that he can get consistent coloration from the oxides.

If you check out some of his live stream videos - through which he apparently sells his wares at discounted prices, I'm not sure how that works - you'll see that all the figures of a certain type have very similar coloration. He's obviously not doing that randomly.

And he seems able to control the color on the hopper crystals, too, because you can order specific colors.

I'm impressed, man...really impressed.

Scientists made LEDs 60% brighter by copying firefly lanterns

Source - https://www.pnas.org/content/109/46/18674

I fully recognize that the above image is a bit detailed. I'd rather embed the video I think is here, about halfway down the page. It worked when I first viewed the article a few months ago, but by the time I got around to posting, the video seems to have died.

Such is life, eh?

Speaking of 'such is life', the article today - written for popular consumption from Gizmodo or the original research from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or even a middle ground from phys.org- shows a great example of biomimcry. A team of Korean scientists wondered why firefly bulbs were so bright, so they headed to the electron microscope to check out the structures of the light-producing organs.

Turns out the organs were shingled, allowing light to transmit from the top and also the edge of the surface. When the scientists mimicked the structure, their LED was 60% brighter than an equivalent using an unshingled structure.

Technically, "[t]he bioinspired OLEDs clearly showed side-enhanced super-Lambertian emission with a wide-viewing angle" (from acs.org).

I would've said that first, but it's such a simple sentence, I wasn't sure you'd read onward if I opened with that.

Does Rebar Rust?

Thanks, Grady

Seriously, I love this guy's videos. His explanations are simple and straightforward. His tone of voice is interesting enough without either being pedantic or assuming too much prior knowledge for me to understand what he's talking about.

He also builds phenomenal demonstration aids to show exactly what he's showing.

This video explains and shows the main ways we prevent rebar from corroding due to cracking allowing in water or other contaminants. He then demonstrates a significant way to avoid these problems - fiber reinforcement.

He also mentions a couple of possibility of replacing steel rebar with either polymer or basalt (?) rebar and why we aren't doing that just yet.

Making metal crystals from Pepto-Bismol

Admittedly, at first I looked at this video with some excitement, thinking that I might be able to use the procedure to demonstrate reduction of a metal in my material science class - or in chemistry.

But the procedure is insanely problematic and long and scattershot in its success. There's no way that rookie science students could perform this with any level of success.

It is, however, frickin' cool to watch.

Plus the video is insanely high def.

Around the Corner - How Differential Steering Works

I'll readily admit that I'm not so sure this is a material science video, but it taught me how differential steering works more clearly than anything I'd ever seen before.

It's stunningly obvious and clear.

This is a marvelous video.