Month: September 2022

URI’s Efforts to Study Plastic Pollution Get Federal Boost

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via US News

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Researchers at the University of Rhode Island are getting some federal assistance for their efforts to better understand plastic pollution and the threat it poses to the ocean.

plastic scrapThe university is set to receive $1 million in grant funding dedicated to studying how plastics spread through the environment as well as ways to reduce their harmful impact.

Read the full story here: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rhode-island/articles/2022-09-11/uris-efforts-to-study-plastic-pollution-get-federal-boost

Scientists Turn Plastic Into Diamonds In Breakthrough

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Scientists Turn Plastic Into Diamonds In Breakthrough

plastic scrapThe production of nanodiamonds from PET plastic paves the way toward a new form of recycling, and even has implications for exoplanets that rain diamonds.

In 2017, researchers in Germany and California found a way to replicate those planetary conditions, fabricating teeny tiny diamonds called nanodiamonds in the lab using polystyrene (aka Styrofoam). Five years later and they’re back at it again, this time using some good ol’ polyethylene terephthalate (PET), according to a study published on Friday in Science Advances. The research has implications not only for our understanding of space, but paves a path toward creating nanodiamonds that are used in a range of contexts out of waste plastic. 

 

Read the full story here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3advqv/scientists-turn-plastic-into-diamonds-in-breakthrough