Two-layered Nano-CarboScavengers have properties to both clump oil spill sheen and disperse them for bacterial digestrion.
When there is an oil spill in a body of water, booms are used to contain it so the contamination can be collected. The aftermath still leaves a sheen of oil that response teams then attempt to keep from devastating the natural environment.
What do they do? They dump chemicals into the water which may be as bad environmentally as the oil.
Enter engineers and chemists from the University of Illinois College of Engineering and ISTC with a new tool to more truly eliminate the damage from oil spills. They have developed microscopic carbon particles they call Nano-CarboScavengers which work in two ways. They have the ability to attract oil and swell in size, creating visible clumps which can be scooped up. The tiny spheres also reduce the surface tension of polluted water, giving natural microorganisms a chance to digest petroleum compounds into harmless components.
Senior Research Engineer B.K. Sharma displays a number of bio-crude fractions he uses to create replacements for petroleum lubricants.
Non-petroleum biobased machine lubricants are an increasingly important strategy for preventing pollution in environmentally sensitive work places, such as for forest, agricultural, and marine applications. The new book Environmentally Friendly and Biobased Lubricants by Brajendra K. Sharma and Girma Biresaw, published by CRC Press, focuses on innovations in this promising area.
Eco-friendly machine lubricants made from vegetable oil are a growing niche in the +$150 billion global lubricants industry. Biobased lubricants are preferred for machines used in total-loss applications (in which the lubrication oils are lost to the environment) because they are renewable, have low ecotoxicity, and are biodegradable when they enter the environment.
They possess good performance properties, such as having lower volatility, higher flash points, higher viscosity indexes, and better boundary lubricant properties, compared with petroleum lubricants, according to Sharma, a senior researcher at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The book surveys researchers’ growing success in producing designer molecules that reduce heat and minimize friction as well as or better than their petroleum-derived counterparts. Sharma and Biresaw, a research chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Peoria (ARS), have synthesized the broad body of current research in their book.
Biobased lubricants are not likely to replace petroleum completely, Sharma said. Bio-lubricants today are scarcely one percent of the total market demand for lubricants, but their annual demand is growing at a rate of 16 percent per year, compared with the two percent annual demand growth for petroleum versions. “But in applications where lubricants are likely to be lost to the environment, these products are taking a firm hold in the marketplace,” he said.
Using heat and enzymes, researchers strip double bonds from molecules, add new elements, attach branches, or join two molecules together to mimic the properties of petroleum lubricants. They are now finding ways to overcome persistent weaknesses of bio-lubricants, including poor oxidative stability and poor low-temperature flow properties.
Some of the best results leading to commercial products are obtained from processing the fatty acids present in vegetable oils. Estolide lubricants developed at the Agricultural Research Service laboratory solve many of the negatives of raw vegetable oils—excellent lubricity, low-temperature performance, oxidative stability, and biodegradability. In addition to lubrication, estolides are being evaluated for use in food applications, cosmetics, cooling fluids, and inks.
Other naturally derived fatty acid compounds under study for lubricant applications include epoxidized oil, vegetable oil diesters, and isostearic acids, according to Sharma. The increasing interest in eco-friendly lubricants is also good news for farmers in the Midwest who grow the raw materials, he added.
Most studies have shown that canola oil will produce the best overall characteristics for bio-lubricants, but corn, soybean, and rapeseed oils are also widely used. Another biologic crop — sugar cane — is taking a far different path to lubrication. Amyris Inc. is commercializing its renewable hydrocarbon farnesene, made with cane sugar and a bioengineered yeast, to produce hydrocarbons for jet fuel, lubricants, and many other uses.
Sharma is currently designing renewable bio-additives to improve the performance characteristics of eco-friendly lubricants. Just as with petroleum lubricants, additives are blended to improve the lubricity, oxidative stability, friction, wear, and corrosion resistance of the base material.
Sharma’s latest patent is for a new molecule of fatty acid chemically modified with boron to produce an antiwear, antifriction additive for vegetable oil-based lubricants. As Sharma continues to build new shapes for plant-derived molecules in the laboratory, he said his goal is to develop a single additive that optimizes all the critical properties of sustainable and renewable lubricants.
Spraying Systems Co. manufactures industrial and agricultural spray products, including spray nozzles and accessories. The company wanted to reduce its waste generation and increase diversion. ISTC’s Zero Waste program helped them achieve their goals by providing the company with an accurate baseline measurement of waste generation at its Wheaton, Illinois headquarters. In addition, ISTC staff collaborated with Spray System’s operations, manufacturing, and sustainability teams to devise a plan for improving waste diversion. Finally, ISTC staff conducted a post-implementation waste stream characterization to measure success and identify opportunities for improvement.
Hoffer Plastics, located in South Elgin, Illinois, specializes in making custom plastic injection molded items. Their products are used in retail packaging and in the automotive, medical, and appliance industries. Hoffer Plastics used a number of strategies to increase efficiency and reduce their environmental impact. They initiated a 100% facility-wide recycling program that diverted 58,000 pounds of materials from the landfill. Their energy conservation measures reduced their electricity consumption by nearly 4 million kWh. Conservation strategies included: installing high efficiency lighting; replaced chilled water pump motors with variable-frequency drive motors; installed thermal blankets on machine barrels; and implementing a compressed air efficiency initiative. Installing a cooling water filtration system that captures back-flushed water to reuse in the cooling towers has reduced the company’s water use by 1.3 million gallons.
The US EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy establishes priorities for the types of activities individuals and organizations can undertake to prevent and reduce food waste. The hierarchy is depicted as an inverted pyramid, showing the most desirable or effective activities at the top (the pyramid’s “base”), with least desirable activities at the bottom (the pyramid’s “tip”).
As with any consideration of waste reduction, source reduction, or preventing waste before it occurs through changes in processes is the most preferred category of activity in this hierarchy. Source reduction activities can include actions such as adjusting food preparation practices so less surplus food is generated, altering food buying habits to reduce spoilage of product before it can be used, or altering serving practices so that people are not provided more food than they are likely to eat. Source reduction of food waste is the most efficient means to ensure that the myriad resources invested in food production and distribution (water, land, energy, human labor, etc.) are not squandered. Next on the list of priorities is feeding hungry people–in other words, diverting any unused, edible food to food banks, shelters, soup kitchens or similar programs so it provides nutrition as intended, instead of occupying space in a landfill. If food cannot be diverted for human consumption (because it is deemed unfit for humans, because it exceeds the amount of food that can be feasibly managed by human food donation infrastructure, etc.), then the next most desirable option is to use food scraps as livestock feed, or food for animals in shelters, zoos, or as raw material for animal feed manufacturers. Many of us may have mental images of farmers in days gone by saving scraps for pig feed, or “slop.” During WWII, when so many materials were in short supply due to the war effort, this practice was even encouraged by governments, as evidenced by this historic UK poster:
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: Save _Kitchen_Waste_to_Feed_the_Pigs!_Art.IWMPST14743.jpg
In modern times, diverting food scraps to feed animals has continued to be used in some instances with great success, keeping materials out of landfill and reducing operating costs for businesses and institutions. The US EPA web site features success stories from New Jersey’s Rutgers University and MGM Resorts International, which diverts scraps from several properties in Las Vegas. However, many well-intentioned programs attempt to divert food scraps to animal feed without being aware of the patchwork of regulations and restrictions that exist throughout the country, sometimes inadvertently violating the laws of their state. Regulations vary widely, and are tied to modern efforts to control the spread of disease among livestock. Some states allow feeding of scraps to livestock after heat treatment to ensure destruction of disease vectors. Other states, including Illinois, have outright bans on feeding food scraps to livestock, particularly swine, even if the scraps are plant-based. The one exception to the Illinois restrictions is that farmers may use scraps from their own households to feed their own swine. While researching state law on this matter for ISTC’s Green Lunchroom Challenge, I was personally struck by the use of the word “garbage” which regulation defines as “All waste material derived in whole or in part from the meat of any animal (including fish and poultry) or other animal material, and other refuse of any character whatsoever that has been associated with any such material, resulting from the handling, preparation, cooking, or consumption of food, except that such term shall not include waste from ordinary household operations which is fed directly to swine on the same premises where such household is located. Garbage also includes putrescible vegetable waste. “Garbage” does not include the contents of the bovine digestive tract. § 5/48-7 (2015).” Not exactly the common citizen’s definition of the word.
Luckily, to help guide organizations and individuals that are focusing more of their efforts on food recovery, the University of Arkansas Food Recovery Project and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic have just released a first of its kind guide cataloging the various different state regulations tied to feeding food scraps to animals. Leftovers for Livestock: A Legal Guide to Using Excess Food as Animal Feed, can assist in navigating the somewhat daunting array of such regulations, helping programs ensure compliance with both federal and state law. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in food recovery, and for those interested in sustainability-related policy, it can provide an interesting example of how complex seemingly simple solutions may become when regulations vary from one location to the next. The guide is available online in PDF format from the Center for Health Law & Policy Innovation at the Harvard Law School.
A technology demonstration in a greater Chicago neighborhood tested acoustic sensors designed to detect water leaks through a network permanently installed in fire hydrants.
ISTC’s Billion Gallon Water Challenge has released a video of its research collaboration with American Water and Echologics to demonstrate new leak detection technology for residential drinking water distribution systems.
Last year the research partners tested the effectiveness of Echologics’ acoustic sensors (designed to be permanently) placed in fire hydrants in a greater Chicago neighborhood — in a multi-channel wireless network to provide real-time 24/7 leak detection in buried distribution systems and demonstrated accuracy of 90 percent.
The technology demonstration was one of ISTC’s Billion Gallon Water Challenge (BGWC) research projects which aimed at saving freshwater resources at multiple levels. A case study on this and other BGWC research is available on ISTC’s website. The technology demonstration was also featured by EfficientGov.com in “Sound Sensors Can Detect Water Pipe Leaks.”
In the BGWC video, Kevin Hillen, Illinois American Water operations superintendent, explains that 12-15 percent of water in the Chicago area is lost to leaks. As water pipe infrastructure continues to age, a greater proportion of potable water will be lost without proactive leak detection and pipe replacement efforts, he added.
“Leaks have a distinct sound signature,” according to Eric Stacey, Echologics product manager. “Leaks occur in specific frequency bands for different materials of pipe,” he explained. In cast iron pipes, for instance, leaks produce a sound at about 300 Hz. “It’s audible, the human ear can hear it, and it stands out from a normal pipeline operation.”
Networked together, an array of acoustic sensors can pinpoint water leaks as they form.
Economics determines the acceptable level of leakage in a water system. In suburban Chicago, where the cost of water exceeds $5 per 1,000 gallons, the necessity of minimizing leaks is greater than average. At the lower end, water can be delivered in some areas for as little as $0.35 per 1,000 gallons.
The installation successfully zeroed in on leaks forming in the American Water distribution system in a neighborhood near Des Plaines, IL. Correlating the data with specialized algorithms, “we were able to show leaks that formed and we were able to show water savings,” Stacey said.
The US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) employs over 35,000 military and civilian engineers which provide engineering solutions in 130 countries. Research to develop the latest and best engineering solutions in conducted in house at the ACE’s Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) which consists of 14 facilities across the nation including Alaska. Local to Champaign, IL, is the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) which conducts research on military installations; contingency bases; sustainable ranges and lands; enhancing socio-cultural understanding in theater operations; and improving civil works facilities and infrastructure, to name a few. CERL also houses ERDC’s Center for the Advancement of Sustainability Innovations (CASI), which was started in 2006 to help ACE and the DoD (Department of Defense) become more sustainable.
Each sections includes the authors, publication titles, if the publication is a draft, and a link to the publication (if it is available), abstract, and an image from the full publication.
It summarizes applicable federal and state regulations, best management practices related to HHW collection, and challenges associated with HHW collection in Champaign County. It also compares the costs of one-day collection events in Illinois and the costs associated with start-up, operation, and processing of permanent HHW collection facilities. Finally, it includes a preliminary “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats” (SWOT) assessment for three potential options for Champaign County.
In 2015, the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) began a project to analyze public data sets to determine the impact of manufacturing on the economy and environment of the six states in U.S. EPA Region 5. The goal of this project was to use the analyzed results to assist pollution prevention technical assistance programs (P2 TAPs) with targeting their assistance efforts.
This paper summarizes preliminary findings related to the food manufacturing and processing industry (NAICS code 311).
In early 2013, Nestlé’s Jacksonville environmental network set a goal to have their factory achieve zero waste to landfill by the end of that year. The network worked with representatives from all four beverage factories – Jacksonville, IL, Freehold, NJ, Waverly, IA, and Anderson, IN – and formed the Nestlé Beverage Environmental Network. As a divisional network they worked collectively on solutions to achieve zero landfill status at all four factories.
The projects pursued by the team resulted in:
1,029 tons of waste diverted from landfill per year; and
$900,000 in annual savings from energy efficient upgrades.
The team also successfully engaged employees at the facility. Half of the efficient installations originated as ideas from factory floor staff.
Biobased lubricants are not likely to replace petroleum completely, Sharma said. Bio-lubricants today are scarcely one percent of the total market demand for lubricants, but their annual demand is growing at a rate of 16 percent per year, compared with the two percent annual demand growth for petroleum versions. “But in applications where lubricants are likely to be lost to the environment, these products are taking a firm hold in the marketplace,” he said.
The technology demonstration was one of ISTC’s Billion Gallon Water Challenge (BGWC) research projects which aimed at saving freshwater resources at multiple levels. A case study on this and other 
CASI recently released a document discussing 2014 and 2015 publications related to sustainability (