Pub To Deploy Singapore's First Large-scale Floating Solar System By 2021
This past summer New York City experienced the worst Legionnaires? disease outbreak in its recorded history. In what is now being referred to as the NYC Legionella Outbreak of 2015, more than 130 people were sickened and 16 people tragically died. In an effort to keep the public safe, both the City and State of New York passed emergency legislation designed to regulate the operation and maintenance of cooling towers. Today, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) seeks to make those emergency provisions stronger and lasting; and will hold a public hearing to discuss and pass their newly proposed rules. The hearing will take place from 10AM to 12PM on January 4, 2016 at DOHMH headquarters in Long Island City. Once the hearing is over, the DOHMH will modify the rules based on the public?s feedback, if necessary, and then draft a final version. A copy is then published in the City Record and submitted to the City Council where it will be voted on to become law. This legislation will have an effect on the operation procedures of any building that operates a cooling, as well as the water treatment companies and environmental consulting firms that service them.
CURRENT NYC COOLING TOWER LAW TO COMBAT LEGIONELLA
To deal with the serious issue of legionella in cooling towers, on August 18th, 2015 in New York City, the City Council and Mayor de Blasio enacted Local Law 77 of 2015. Legionnaires? disease is said to have a case fatality rate of 5-30%. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there were between 8,000 and 18,000 cases of LD in the United States annually, and that more than 10% of cases are fatal. (Learn more here: What is legionella?)
Local Law 77 added a new Article 317 to Title 28 of the Administrative Code that required owners of cooling towers to register them with the Department of Buildings (DOB) by September 17, 2015. Towers must be inspected, tested, cleaned and disinfected in accordance with new Administrative Code ?17-194.1 and rules adopted by the DOB. Owners and operators of cooling towers must annually certify to the Department that their cooling towers have been inspected, tested, cleaned and disinfected and that a management and maintenance program has been developed and implemented in accordance with Administrative Code ?17-194.1 which includes maintaining a proper cooling tower water treatment program. Statewide, including in New York City, owners of all cooling towers must also comply with New York State Sanitary Code (SSC) Part 4, which includes registration with and reporting requirements to the New York State Department of Health.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH PROPOSED UPDATES TO TITLE 24
Today, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) is proposing to add a new Chapter 8 (Cooling Towers) to Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York to establish rules for maintenance of cooling towers to minimize potential contamination by Legionella bacteria to prevent outbreaks of Legionnaires? disease. This new Chapter 8 will further the work of Local Law 77, and require building owners to provide cooling tower maintenance and testing records to the NYC Department of Health.
Chapter 8?s provisions that are equivalent to the State Sanitary Code Part 4. This proposed Chapter is organized differently than the State Sanitary Code requirements; more terms are defined in this Chapter and more detailed instructions for management and maintenance are provided than those contained in SSC Part 4 to facilitate compliance with both the City and State rules and requirements.
To ratify these changes, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has issued their Notice of Public Hearing and Opportunity to Comment on Proposed Amendments to Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York. (You can find a link to the DOHMH Notice at the end of this post.)
According to the NYC Rules website, here are the proposed changes to Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York. It adds a new Chapter 8, which includes the following sections:
8-01 Scope and applicability: applicable to all owners and operators of buildings and other premises that are equipped with cooling towers.
8-02 Definitions: to facilitate compliance with and enforcement of these rules, more terms are defined in this Chapter than in the corresponding sections of either Administrative Code or SSC Part 4.
8-03 Maintenance program and plan: the requirements of this section exceed those of SSC Part 4, including specific routine maintenance tasks; identification of persons responsible for various functions; identifying system components; and establishing a system risk management assessment to identify areas that may create problems and lead to proliferation of Legionella bacteria.
8-04 Process control measures: this section establishes requirements for routine monitoring, to be conducted at least weekly by a ?responsible person?? under the supervision ? remote or on-site -- of the ?qualified person?? identified in SSC Part 4, and for compliance inspections, to be conducted at least every 90 days, by the qualified person. It specifies standards for maintenance, cleaning, and parts replacement; and requires installation of high efficiency drift eliminators in all new and retrofitted cooling tower systems and in existing ones, where practicable.
8-05 Water treatment: this section specifies requirements for automatic treatments, use of chemicals and biocides, and monitoring water quality characteristics/parameters, and establishes a schedule for sampling for Legionella and other bacteria including requiring additional sampling when certain events occur. This section also mandates the use of certain qualified laboratories for analysis and requires reporting levels of Legionella at a certain magnitude to the Department within 24 hours of obtaining test results; and specifies corrective actions for various levels of bacteria. Although the 2014 New York City Plumbing Code Appendix C authorizes use of rainwater or recycled water as makeup water for cooling towers, it does not require disinfection for Legionella bacteria before use. These rules prohibit such use unless owners use additional control measures approved by the Department that protect against cooling tower system contamination since the Department believes that this water may not meet public health standards and may tend to support microbial growth.
8-06 System shutdown and start-up; commissioning new cooling towers: this section sets forth requirements for pre-seasonal cleaning and disinfection and for new cooling towers being placed into use.
8-07 Records: this requires the maintenance of records of all activities and that such records be made available for immediate inspection by the Department at the premises where the cooling tower is installed.
8-08 Modification: authorizes the Commissioner to modify the application of a provision of these rules where compliance imposes an undue hardship and would not otherwise be required by law, provided that the modification does not compromise public health concerns.
8-09 Penalties: establishes a schedule of penalties for initial and subsequent violations within the limits set forth in Administrative Code ?17-194.1.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH PUBLIC HEARING ON COOLING TOWER LEGISLATION
The NYC DOHMH will hold a public hearing on these proposed rules. The hearing will take place from 10AM to 12PM on January 4, 2016 at:
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Gotham Center
42-09 28th Street, 14th Floor, Room 14-43
Long Island City, NY 11101-4132
Anyone is permitted to attend the hearing and/or comment on the proposal. The DOHMH has given the following ways to communicate public commentary:
Website: You can submit comments to the Department through the NYC rules Web site at http://rules.cityofnewyork.us
Email: You can email written comments to resolutioncomments@health.nyc.gov
Mail: You can mail written comments to:
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Office of General Counsel
Attn: Svetlana Burdeynik
42-09 28th Street, 14th Floor
Long Island City, NY 11101-4132
Fax: You can fax written comments to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at 347-396-6087.
Speaking at the hearing: Anyone who wants to comment on the proposal at the public hearing must sign up to speak. You can sign up before the hearing by calling at 347-396-6078. You can also sign up in the hearing room before or during the hearing on January 4, 2016. You can speak for up to five minutes.
GET YOUR FREE COPY OF THE FULL NOTICE
If you would like to read the full copy of the DOH?s notice, please fill out the form below for an instant link. This document fully outlines all of the sections of the newly proposed Chapter 8 including the full requirements for maintenance, operation, and ongoing water treatment of cooling towers in New York City. There is no charge for this information and it is freely available online.
FREE DOWNLOAD: Get the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene?s Notice of Public Hearing and Opportunity to Comment on Proposed Amendments to Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York here:
About Clarity Water Technologies
Clarity Water Technologies is known throughout the east coast as an innovative industrial/commercial water treatment company and the innovators of 360 Degree Legionella Management Service. To put it simply: As New York City's Top Environmental Consultants, we make commercial HVAC and industrial process machinery last longer and run more efficiently, with less fuel and less downtime, by chemically treating the water that runs through it. Typical systems that we treat include steam boilers, chillers and cooling towers; however, we also offer advanced wastewater, glycol services, odor control and fuel treatment services. We are one of Northeast?s most trusted Legionella remediation companies and are widely accepted as one of the best consulting firms to establish best practices for the implementation of ASHRAE Standard 188 - Legionellosis: Risk Management for Building Water Systems.
As environmental consultants specializing in water treatment, we know that chemistry is only one part of what makes a cooling tower system operate at peak performance. The other part of the equation is proper physical cleaning, disinfection and maintenance. Today, Clarity offers one of the most reliable and effective cooling tower disinfection services available throughout NY, NJ, CT, DE, MD and PA. Clarity is a NADCA Certified HVAC Cleaning Service Company. Our team also offers on-line cleanings, chlorine dioxide disinfection, Legionella remediation and installation of the EcoSAFE Solid Feed System?one of the most advanced water treatment systems for Cooling Towers in the world! Please contact us today for a free estimate on your next project.
New York City Water Treatment Expert and Environmental Consultant, Greg Frazier has a vast knowledge of Industrial Boiler Water Treatment and is currently the Managing Partner of Clarity Water Technologies, one of the top Environmental Consulting firms in New York. Mr. Frazier has over 19 years of Industrial Water Treatment experience and holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee. Clarity Water Technologies specializes in comprehensive water treatment services. Clarity's service goes far beyond administering Cooling Tower Water Treatment chemicals - it also includes Cooling Tower Maintenance and HVAC Cleaning Services.
The Definitive Guide To Nyc's Order To Disinfect Your Cooling Towers
Aries Clean Energy Completes Environmental Permitting For World's First Large-Scale Biosolids Gasification Facility
LINDEN, N.J. & FRANKLIN, TENN.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Aries Clean Energy has received all approvals required to construct New Jersey?s first biosolids-only gasification facility. The plant will bring environmental and sustainable benefits to the area by processing 400 tons of biosolids daily into clean renewable energy.
Rendering of Aries Linden Biosolids Gasification Facility (Photo: Business Wire)
The Aries Linden Biosolids Gasification Facility will be located in a re-purposed building within the Linden Roselle Sewerage Authority (LRSA) complex, 20 miles from Manhattan (New York City). Aries will deploy its patented fluidized bed gasification system that was designed specifically for processing biosolids. The system will reduce the volume of biosolids from 400 tons per day to 22 tons of beneficial biochar. The biochar will be beneficially used as a substitute for fly ash in concrete. The renewable energy that is generated from the system is then recovered and used within the system, so no fossil fuels are used during normal operations. It will also reduce greenhouse gases due to the reduction in trucking miles associated with conventional disposal methods as well as the elimination of methane generated from land application of biosolids.
?With these approvals, this marks the first large-scale fluidized bed gasification system to process biosolids in the world,?? said Gregory Bafalis, CEO of Aries Clean Energy. ?Aries patented gasification system eliminates the need for environmentally harmful landfilling or incineration of biosolids, while producing beneficial renewable energy and biochar. We believe this truly is a beneficial and disruptive technology that will revolutionize the wastewater treatment industry and establish itself as the best available control technology for biosolids disposal.??
?It has been a great experience to team up with the LRSA and the State of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). The awarding of these permits further validates Aries patented technologies will bring clean and renewable solutions not only to the Garden State, but worldwide,?? Bafalis added.
?We are excited to bring this green gasification technology to Linden. It?s more than the addition of jobs to our City, it?s taking a step toward a healthier New Jersey, a healthier Earth,?? said Mayor Derek Armstead, mayor of Linden, NJ. ?This is not only a first for Linden, but it will be the largest facility of its type in the world.??
The Mayor went on to further state, ?On behalf of the residents of Linden, we look forward to a long relationship with Aries Clean Energy. Its proven technology will provide a biosolids disposal solution that helps the environment and saves taxpayers money.??
LRSA, created in 1948, services the City of Linden and the Borough of Roselle. It was established to contract and operate wastewater treatment and interceptor facilities to collect, treat, and dispose of sewage generated by the municipalities.
About Aries Clean Energy
Aries Clean Energy, LLC, IRO chelating based in Franklin, Tennessee, designs and builds innovative downdraft and fluidized bed gasification systems using its eight patents granted to date. Its projects provide for the sustainable disposal of waste, reduction of carbon emissions, and the production of clean thermal and electrical energy. For more information, please visit our website: www.ariescleanenergy.com.
The Basics Of Neutralizing Amines In Steam Line Treatment :: Momar
In order to meet the fast growing global market demand for its innovative chelating agent, BASF will build a new Trilon?M (methylglycinediacetic acid) world scaleplant at Evonik?s Theodore, Alabamasite. The investment will be about $90 million and create around 20 additional jobs. The new production facilityis planned to start up in the second half of 2015.
BASF?s chelating agent is readily biodegradable and improves the cleaning effect of detergents and cleaners inhome care and industrial and institutional (I&I) cleaning applications.It isemerging as the preferred alternative to phosphates in modern, high-performance, ecological dishwashing detergents.
?We continue to see rapid market growth for more eco-friendly cleaning products,?? saidGabriel Tanbourgi, President of BASF?s Care Chemicals division. "With the expansion and globalization of our Trilon? M production capacity we will beable to serve the global demand for Trilon? M and supportour customers on their path towards sustainable cleaning solutions."
The investment in Theodore, Alabama, will free up capacity in Ludwigshafen, Germany, to serve the increasing European demand for Trilon? M triggered by the phosphate regulation for consumer automatic dishwashing detergents which is expected in 2017. In the United States, phosphates were already banned from consumer automatic dishwashing detergents in 16 states in 2010.
BASF brought a new world scale plant expansion for Trilon? M on stream in Ludwigshafen in 2010. Trilon? M was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency?s (EPA) Design for the Environment (DfE) certification programin 2011. BASF currently manufactures its IRO chelating agents at its Ludwigshafen site, in Lima, Ohio and in Guaratinguet?, Brazil.
Avoiding Air Duct And Vent Cleaning is Detrimental For Business: Part One
A high-resolution free-air gravity map based on data returned from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission, overlaid on terrain based on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter altimeter and camera data. The view is south-up, with the south pole near the horizon in the upper left. The terminator crosses the eastern rim of the Schr?dinger basin. Gravity is painted onto the areas that are in or near the night side. Red corresponds to mass excesses and blue to mass deficits. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
The Moon's south pole region is home to some of the most extreme environments in the solar system: it's unimaginably cold, massively cratered, and has areas that are either constantly bathed in sunlight or in darkness. This is precisely why NASA wants to send astronauts there in 2024 as part of its Artemis program.
The most enticing feature of this southernmost region is the craters, some of which never see the light of day reach their floors. The reason for this is the low angle of sunlight striking the surface at the poles. To a person standing at the lunar south pole, the Sun would appear on the horizon, illuminating the surface sideways, and, thus, skimming primarily the rims of some craters while leaving their deep interiors in shadow.
As a result of the permanent darkness, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has measured the coldest temperatures in the solar system inside these craters, which have become known as perfect environments for preserving material like water for eons. Or so we thought.
It turns out that despite temperature that dips to -388 degrees Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius) and can presumably keep frost locked in soil virtually forever, water is slowly escaping the topmost, super thin layer (thinner than the width of a red blood cell) of the Moon's surface. NASA scientists reported this finding recently in paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"People think of some areas in these polar craters as trapping water and that's it," said William M. Farrell, a plasma physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the lunar frost research. "But there are solar wind particles and meteoroids hitting the surface, and they can drive reactions that typically occur at warmer surface temperatures. That's something that's not been emphasized."
Unlike Earth, with its plush atmosphere, the Moon has no atmosphere to protect its surface. So when the Sun sprays charged particles known as the solar wind into the solar system, some of them bombard the Moon's surface and kick up water molecules that bounce around to new locations.
Likewise, wayward meteoroids constantly smash into the surface and uproot soil mingled with frozen bits of water. Meteoroids can hurtle these soil particles?which are many times smaller than the width of a human hair?as far as 19 miles (30 kilometers) away from the impact site, depending on the size of the meteoroid. The particles can travel so far because the Moon has low gravity and no air to slow things dowInside dark, polar moon craters, water not as invincible as expected, scientists argue A high-resolution free-air gravity map based on data returned from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission, overlaid on terrain based on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter altimeter and camera data. The view is south-up, with the south pole near the horizon in the upper left. The terminator crosses the eastern rim of the Schr?dinger basin. Gravity is painted onto the areas that are in or near the night side. Red corresponds to mass excesses and blue to mass deficits. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
The Moon's south pole region is home to some of the most extreme environments in the solar system: it's unimaginably cold, massively cratered, and has areas that are either constantly bathed in sunlight or in darkness. This is precisely why NASA wants to send astronauts there in 2024 as part of its Artemis program.
The most enticing feature of this southernmost region is the craters, some of which never see the light of day reach their floors. The reason for this is the low angle of sunlight striking the surface at the poles. To a person standing at the lunar south pole, the Sun would appear on the horizon, illuminating the surface sideways, and, thus, skimming primarily the rims of some craters while leaving their deep interiors in shadow.
As a result of the permanent darkness, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has measured the coldest temperatures in the solar system inside these craters, which have become known as perfect environments for preserving material like water for eons. Or so we thought.
It turns out that despite temperature that dips to -388 degrees Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius) and can presumably keep frost locked in soil virtually forever, water is slowly escaping the topmost, super thin layer (thinner than the width of a red blood cell) of the Moon's surface. NASA scientists reported this finding recently in paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
"People think of some areas in these polar craters as trapping water and that's it," said William M. Farrell, a plasma physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the lunar frost research. "But there are solar wind particles and meteoroids hitting the surface, and they can drive reactions that typically occur at warmer surface temperatures. That's something that's not been emphasized."
Unlike Earth, with its plush atmosphere, the Moon has no atmosphere to protect its surface. So when the Sun sprays charged particles known as the solar wind into the solar system, some of them bombard the Moon's surface and kick up water molecules that bounce around to new locations.
Likewise, wayward meteoroids constantly smash into the surface and uproot soil mingled with frozen bits of water. Meteoroids can hurtle these soil particles?which are many times smaller than the width of a human hair?as far as 19 miles (30 kilometers) away from the impact site, depending on the size of the meteoroid. The particles can travel so far because the Moon has low gravity and no air to slow things down: "So every time you have one of these impacts, a very thin layer of ice grains is spread across the surface, exposed to the heat of the Sun and to the space environment, and eventually sublimated or lost to other environmental processes," said Dana Hurley, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
While it's important to consider that even in the shadowed craters water is slowly seeping out, it's possible that water is being added, too, the paper authors note. Icy comets that crash into the Moon, plus the solar wind, could be replenishing it as part of a global water cycle; that's something scientists are trying to figure out. Additionally, it's not clear how much water there is. Is it sitting only in the top layer of the Moon's surface or does it extend deep into the Moon's crust, scientists wonder?
Either way, the topmost layer of polar crater floors is getting reworked over thousands of years, according to calculations by Farrell, Hurley, and their team. Therefore, the faint patches of frost that scientists have detected at the poles using instruments such as LRO's Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument could be just 2,000 years old, instead of millions or billions of years old as some might expect, Farrell's team estimated. "We can't think of these craters as icy dead spots," he noted.
Permanently-shadowed crater on the Moon. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
To confirm his team's calculations, Farrell said, a future instrument capable of detecting water vapor should find, above the Moon's surface, one to 10 water molecules per cubic centimeter that have been liberated by impacts.
The Good News for Future Lunar Exploration
For forthcoming science and exploration, the scattering of water particles could be great news. It means astronauts may need not to subject themselves and their instruments to the harsh environment of shadowed crater floors in order to find water-rich soil?they could just find it in sunny regions nearby.
"This research is telling us that meteoroids are doing some of the work for us and transporting material from the coldest places to some of the boundary regions where astronauts can access it with a solar-powered rover," Hurley said. "It's also telling us that what we need to do is get on the surface of one of these regions and get some firsthand data about what's happening."
Getting to the lunar surface would make it much easier to assess how much water is on the Moon. Because identifying water from afar, particularly in permanently shadowed craters, is tricky business. The primary way that scientists find water is through remote sensing instruments that can identify what chemical elements things are made of based on the light they reflect or absorb. "But for that, you need a light source," Hurley said. "And by definition, these permanently shadowed regions don't have a strong one."
Understanding the Water Environment on the Moon
Until NASA astronauts get back to the Moon to dig up some soil, or the agency sends new instruments near the surface that can sniff out floating water molecules, the research team's theory about the influence of meteoroids on the environment inside shadowed craters could help chip away at some of the mysteries surrounding the Moon's water. It already has helped scientists understand if the uppermost surface water is new or ancient, or how it may migrate around the Moon. Another thing meteoroid impacts to the crater floors could help explain is why scientists are finding patches of wispy frost diluted in regolith, or Moon soil, rather than blocks of pure water ice.
Even though water questions abound, it's important to remember, Farrell said, that it was only in the last decade that scientists found evidence that the Moon is not a dry, dead rock, as many had long assumed. The LRO, with its thousands of orbits and 1 petabyte of returned science data (equivalent to about 200,000, high-definition, feature-length films streamed online), has been instrumental. So has the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which revealed frozen water after purposely crashing into Cabeus crater in 2009 and releasing a plume of preserved material from the crater floor that included water.
"We suspected there was water at the poles and learned for sure from LCROSS, but we now have evidence that there's water at mid latitudes," Farrell said. "We also have evidence that there's water coming from micrometeoroid impacts, and we have measurements of frost. But the question is, how are all these water sources related?"
That's a question Farrell and his colleagues are closer to answering than ever before.
n: "So every time you have one of these impacts, a very thin layer of ice grains is spread across the surface, exposed to the heat of the Sun and to the space environment, and eventually sublimated or lost to other environmental processes," said Dana Hurley, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
While it's important to consider that even in the shadowed craters water is slowly seeping out, it's possible that water is being added, too, the paper authors note. Icy comets that crash into the Moon, plus the solar wind, could be replenishing it as part of a global water cycle; that's something scientists are trying to figure out. Additionally, it's not clear how much water there is. Is it sitting only in the top layer of the Moon's surface or does it extend deep into the Moon's crust, scientists wonder?
Either way, the topmost layer of polar crater floors is getting reworked over thousands of years, according to calculations by Farrell, Hurley, and their team. Therefore, the faint patches of frost that scientists have detected at the poles using instruments such as LRO's Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument could be just 2,000 years old, instead of millions or billions of years old as some might expect, Farrell's team estimated. "We can't think of these craters as icy dead spots," he noted.
To confirm his team's calculations, Farrell said, a future instrument capable of detecting water vapor should find, above the Moon's surface, one to 10 water molecules per cubic centimeter that have been liberated by impacts.
The Good News for Future Lunar Exploration
For forthcoming science and exploration, the scattering of water particles could be great news. It means astronauts may need not to subject themselves and their instruments to the harsh environment of shadowed crater floors in order to find water-rich soil?they could just find it in sunny regions nearby.
"This research is telling us that meteoroids are doing some of the work for us and transporting material from the coldest places to some of the boundary regions where astronauts can access it with a solar-powered rover," Hurley said. "It's also telling us that what we need to do is get on the surface of one of these regions and get some firsthand data about what's happening."
Getting to the lunar surface would make it much easier to assess how much water is on the Moon. Because identifying water from afar, particularly in permanently shadowed craters, is tricky business. The primary way that scientists find water is through remote sensing instruments that can identify what chemical elements things are made of based on the light they reflect or absorb. "But for that, you need a light source," Hurley said. "And by definition, these permanently shadowed regions don't have a strong one."
Understanding the Water Environment on the Moon
Until NASA astronauts get back to the Moon to dig up some soil, or the agency sends new instruments near the surface that can sniff out floating water molecules, the research team's theory about the influence of meteoroids on the environment inside shadowed craters could help chip away at some of the mysteries surrounding the Moon's water. It already has helped scientists understand if the uppermost surface water is new or ancient, or how it may migrate around the Moon. Another thing meteoroid impacts to the crater floors could help explain is why scientists are finding patches of wispy frost diluted in regolith, or Moon soil, rather than blocks of pure water ice.
Even though water questions abound, it's important to remember, Farrell said, that it was only in the last decade that scientists found evidence that the Moon is not a dry, dead rock, as many had long assumed. The LRO, with its thousands of orbits and 1 petabyte of returned science data (equivalent to about 200,000, high-definition, feature-length films streamed online), has been instrumental. So has the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which revealed frozen water after purposely crashing into Cabeus crater in 2009 and releasing a plume of preserved material from the crater floor that included water.
"We suspected there was water at the poles and learned for sure from LCROSS, but we now have evidence that there's water at mid latitudes," Farrell said. "We also have evidence that there's water coming from micrometeoroid impacts, and we have measurements of frost. But the question is, how are all these water sources related?"
That's a question Farrell and his colleagues are closer to answering than ever before.
Uwc Helps Lng Plant Save Water And Lower Costs
Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created a new multi-material 3-D nanoprinting technique that was featured on the inside front cover of the July 21 issue of Lab on a Chip.
The team's new technique?capable of printing tiny multi-material structures a fraction of the size of a human hair?offers researchers a faster, cheaper, and more accurate means to 3-D print these highly complex structures because the process uses a very simple molding process that is widely used in most microfluidics labs.
To demonstrate their new approach, the researchers 3-D nanoprinted a variety of multi-material components, including a five-material DNA structure, a multi-material "micro-cello," and a four-material micro UMD logo.
"By providing researchers with an accessible way to 3-D nanoprint multi-material systems that is not only much quicker, but also more precise than conventional methods, this work opens doors for emerging applications that demand microstructures with multiple materials, and in turn, multiple functions," said Ryan Sochol, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and bioengineering at UMD's A. James Clark School of Engineering.
In one application of this new approach, Sochol's Bioinspired Advanced Manufacturing (BAM) Laboratory is working with the Food and Drug Administration to apply this strategy to 3-D nanoprint parts of the human eye that include complex anatomy with varying optical properties.
Andrew Lamont, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in bioengineering at UMD, presented early results of the team's research at the International Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Conference in Seoul, Korea this past January, where the work was selected for the conference's Outstanding Paper Award.
In the past decade, scientists have struggled to 3-D nanoprint structures with more than one material, as conventional techniques are limited in terms of time, cost, labor, and multi-material resolution. While 3-D printing technologies have advanced greatly in recent years, printing at very small scales remains difficult.
"Unfortunately, prior challenges have resulted in only a handful of advancements based on multi-material 3-D nanoprinting, with the vast majority including only two materials," said Lamont, who developed the approach as part of his doctoral research. "But with our strategy, researchers can easily 3-D nanoprint systems with high numbers of integrated materials at speeds and sizes not possible with conventional methods."
The Clark School team has filed two U.S. provisional patents for their strategy, which is based on a process called "in-situ direct laser writing" and work published earlier this year. The multi-material structures are 3-D nanoprinted directly inside of microchannels, IRO chelating with distinct liquid materials loaded into the channel one at a time for material-specific printing. Once the printing process is finished, the microchannel enclosure can be removed, leaving behind fully integrated multi-material 3-D structures in a fraction of the time, yet with better precision than the state of the art.
"This new ability to 3-D nanoprint systems comprising materials with target chemical, biological, electrical, optical, and/or mechanical properties," Sochol said, "offers a promising pathway to breakthroughs in areas including drug delivery, advanced optics, meta-materials, and microrobotics."
Best Pre-treatment For Water [X-b-m-0-x] Ion Water Solutions
Scientists think that green algae are plants water-living ancestors, but we are not sure how the transition to land plants happened.
New research from Michigan State University, and published in the journal eLife, presents evidence that algae could have piggybacked on fungi to leave the water and to colonize the land, over 500 million years ago.
"Fungi are found all over the planet. They create symbiotic relationships with most land plants. That is one reason we think they were essential for evolution of life on land. But until now, we have not seen evidence of fungi internalizing living algae," said Zhi-Yan Du, study co-author and member of the labs of Christoph Benning, and Gregory Bonito.
Researchers selected a strain of soil fungus and marine alga from old lineages, respectively Mortierella elongata and Nannochloropsis oceanica.
When grown together, both organisms form a strong relationship.
"Microscopy images show the algal cells aggregating around and attaching to fungal cells," Du said. "The algal wall is slightly broken down, and its fibrous extensions appear to grab the surface of the fungus."
Surprisingly, when they are grown together for IRO chelating a long time?around a month?some algal cells enter the fungal cells. Both organisms remain active and healthy in this relationship.
This is the first time scientists have seen fungi internalize a eukaryotic, photosynthetic organism. They call it a photosynthetic mycelium.
"This is a win-win situation. Both organisms get additional benefits from being together," Du said. "They exchange nutrients, with a likely net flow of carbon from alga to fungus, and a net flow of nitrogen in the other direction. Interestingly, the fungus needs physical contact with living algal cells to get nutrients. Algal cells don't need physical contact or living fungus to benefit from the interaction. Fungal cells, dead or alive, release nutrients in their surroundings."
"Even better, when nutrients are scarce, algal and fungal cells grown together fend off starvation by feeding each other. They do better than when they are grown separately," explained Du.
Perhaps this increased hardiness explains how algae survived the trek onto land.
"In nature, similar symbiotic events might be going on, more than we realize," Du said. "We now have a system to study how a photosynthetic organism can live inside a non-photosynthetic one and how this symbiosis evolves and functions."
Both organisms are biotech related strains because they produce high amounts of oil. Du is testing them as a platform to produce high-value compounds, such as biofuels or Omega 3 fatty acids.
"Because the two organisms are more resilient together, they might better survive the stresses of bioproduction," Du said. "We could also lower the cost of harvesting algae, which is a large reason biofuel costs are still prohibitive."
