Researchers drop more than 8,000 pieces of litter into a fake river to fight plastic pollution
Nobody really knows how much plastic is in the world's rivers or where it accumulates.
Nobody really knows how much plastic is in the world's rivers or where it accumulates.
Environment
6 hours ago
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1
Despite consumer efforts to sort and separate recyclables, most plastic bottles still end up in the landfill. Standard recycling methods to sort, shred and remake plastics are limited to just type-1 and type-2 plastics—basically ...
Materials Science
May 22, 2024
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Plastic pollution presents a global challenge that must be solved. In particular, packaging accounts for 30–50% of the total plastic consumption. While paper packaging is eco-friendly, it lacks crucial functionalities like ...
Polymers
May 22, 2024
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Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines top the global per capita list of dietary uptakes of microplastics, while China, Mongolia and the United Kingdom top the list of countries that breathe ...
Environment
May 22, 2024
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86
The National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) has established a technique for cultivating human mesenchymal stem cells, widely used in regenerative medicine, on the surface of an ionic liquid.
Cell & Microbiology
May 22, 2024
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9
Researchers at Virginia Tech are exploring processes that might greatly increase the recycling of one of the world's most-produced plastics.
Polymers
May 20, 2024
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93
The increasing sense of environmental responsibility of both consumers and companies has triggered a transition towards alternative materials which are perceived as more sustainable than plastics.
Environment
May 16, 2024
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Wendella engineer Miguel Chavez climbed down a ladder and over a small dock to pull up a trap floating in the Chicago River near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. The size of a standard garbage can, the trap is designed to collect ...
Environment
May 13, 2024
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Daphnia are tiny crustaceans, or "water fleas," that are extremely adaptable to their environment. This is due to their remarkable phenotypic plasticity, i.e., their ability to change their form or behavior despite their ...
Evolution
May 13, 2024
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88
As kimchi has been drawing attention as a global healthy food trend, cabbage is one of the representative vegetables used as a main ingredient for manufacturing kimchi overseas.
Biotechnology
May 10, 2024
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A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs. Monomers of plastic are either natural or synthetic organic compounds.
The word plastic is derived from the Greek πλαστικός (plastikos) meaning capable of being shaped or molded, from πλαστός (plastos) meaning molded. It refers to their malleability, or plasticity during manufacture, that allows them to be cast, pressed, or extruded into a variety of shapes—such as films, fibers, plates, tubes, bottles, boxes, and much more.
The common word plastic should not be confused with the technical adjective plastic, which is applied to any material which undergoes a permanent change of shape (plastic deformation) when strained beyond a certain point. Aluminum which is stamped or forged, for instance, exhibits plasticity in this sense, but is not plastic in the common sense; in contrast, in their finished forms, some plastics will break before deforming and therefore are not plastic in the technical sense.
There are two types of plastics: thermoplastics and thermosetting polymers. Thermoplastics are the plastics that do not undergo chemical change in their composition when heated and can be moulded again and again; examples are polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Thermosets can melt and take shape once; after they have solidified, they stay solid.
The raw materials needed to make most plastics come from petroleum and natural gas.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA