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Showing posts from August, 2018

Are Western Companies Polluting China's Rivers?

What's the Latest Development? Following a Greenpeace investigation into corporate responsibility in China, the environmental group reports that large textile factories, which often supply Western clothing companies, regularly release toxic chemicals into China's rivers. "The Youngor facility in Ningbo, near Shanghai, was found to have discharged nonylphenol, an endocrine disruptor that builds up in the food chain, perfluorinated chemicals, which can have an adverse effect on the liver and sperm counts, as well as a cocktail of other toxins." What's the Big Idea?  Greenpeace has linked Nike, Adidas, H&M, Puma and Lacoste with the Youngor textile facility, which it believes is releasing toxins into China's water supply. The companies deny that their business with Youngor uses any of the products Greenpeace refers to in their report, most of which are made necessary during the dyeing process. But denying any direct responsibility is not good enough, ...

I dont trust atoms, I heard they make up everything

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The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive Announce Award Recipients in the Challenge for Novel Green Preservatives

Lowell, MA, Aug. 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive are pleased to announce seven winners in the global GC3 Challenge: Developing New Preservatives for Personal Care & Household Products. Launched in April 2017, the challenge aimed to identify and support innovators developing preservative technologies with improved environmental, health and safety profiles for use in cosmetics, personal care and household products. Preservatives are incorporated in products such as shampoos, hand creams, and laundry detergents to slow microbial growth and prevent contamination and spoilage. There is an urgent need for green chemistry innovation in preservative technologies because regulations, market demands and increasing consumer interest have shrunk the palette of acceptable preservative options for formulators. The GC3 Preservatives Challenge sought submissions on new broad spectrum or single action chemical agents on gram-positive b...

Role of hydration energy and co-ions association on monovalent and divalent cations adsorption at mica-aqueous interface

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Adsorption of ions at the solid - aqueous interface is the primary mechanism in fast biological processes to very slow geological transformations. Despite, little is known about role of ion charge, hydration energy and hydration structure on competitive adsorption of ions, their structure and coverage at the interface. In this report, we investigate the structure and adsorption behavior of monovalent (Rb+ and Na+) and divalent (Sr2+ and Mg2+) cations ranging from 0–4.5 M of bulk concentrations on the muscovite mica surface. Divalent ions have stronger adsorption strength compared to monovalent ions due higher charge. However, we observed counter-intuitive behavior of lesser adsorption of divalent cations compared to monovalent cations. Our detailed analysis reveals that hydration structure of divalent cations hinders their adsorption. Both, Na+ and Rb+ ions exhibits similar adsorption behavior, however, the adsorption mechanism of Na+ ions is different from Rb+ ions in terms of redistr...