Developing New Materials: Using banana peels to purify water

Today’s solution addresses the development of a potential vaccine to fight methamphetamine abuse. Methamphetamine abuse costs the United States more than 23 billion annually in medical expenses, law enforcement costs, and lost productivity.

Today’s solution sounds a warning bell about the much-anticipated new era of nanoagriculture — using nanotechnology to boost the productivity of plants for food, fuel, and other uses.

A study in the American Chemical Society’s journal, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, reports that minced banana peel performs better than an array of other water purification materials and can do so in a sustainable way.

With continuing concern about plastic waste accumulating in municipal landfills, and reliance on imported oil to make plastics, scientists have created an ultra-light biodegradable foam plastic material made from two unlikely ingredients.

Scientists are reporting evidence that black rice — a little-known variety of the grain that is the staple food for one-third of the world population — may help soothe the inflammation involved in allergies, asthma, and other diseases.

Scientists are reporting development and successful initial tests of an inexpensive new filtering technology that kills up to 98 percent of disease-causing bacteria in water in just seconds without clogging.

A new study published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science and Technology journal provides a compelling new reason not to waste food. It saves energy, lots of money at home and fights global hunger.

New research suggests that just five minutes of outdoor activities, such as exercising in a park, working in a backyard garden or walking on a nature trail, will benefit mental health.

Bricks, blocks, and steel I-beams — step aside. That’s because scientists are reporting that a new genre of construction materials, made from stuff barely 1/50,000th the width of a human hair, is about to debut in the building of homes, offices, bridges, and other structures. The new report highlights both the potential benefits of these nanomaterials in improving construction materials and the need for guidelines to regulate their use and disposal. The report appears in the monthly journal ACS Nano.

Existing technology can produce biodiesel fuel from municipal sewage sludge that is within a few cents a gallon of being competitive with conventional diesel refined from petroleum. Intro theme and music by Kevin MacLeod. Creative Commons licensed audio from freesound.iua.upf.edu.