Campus-wide Sustainable Electronics Consortium Formed

On Oct. 2, 2013, a group of interested individuals on the U of I campus met to discuss the issues involving the environmental and social impacts of electronics and the current relevant policies, education, and research taking place.  As a major public university that purchases, uses and disposes of thousands of electronics, we have a duty to address these issues and lead by example to “green up our act.”

 

An overview of the issues and what ISTC (through its Sustainable Electronics Initiative) and other entities are doing on campus with regards to electronics involving  education, research, and operations was explained by Joy Scrogum (SEI Co-Coordinator), who led the meeting, as well as possible activities and goals for this campus group. Attendees provided feedback on these suggestions, group structure, and themes for possible future smaller group meetings focusing on those three categories of research, education, and operations. ISTC/SEI will distribute minutes, make arrangements for the themed focus group meetings, and coordinate the sharing of information among those subgroups.

 

The result was a new Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium which explored ways to address the issue. Present were engineers, faculty, administrators, students and participants from off-campus communities.  Anyone interested in joining the Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium talks can contact Joy Scrogum to be added to the email list of upcoming meetings and topics or visit the SEI Campus Consortium page.

 

 

Trash Into Treasure: New Advances in Upcycling Electronic Waste

Innovative companies are adding upcycling to their repertoire of materials reuse for electronic waste. Upcycling brings added quality or environmental value to things we throw away. ERS International develops and utilizes new technologies which allow them to obtain maximum recovery value of electronics via electrostatic separation & particle classification. But ERS has also made significant headway in this untapped field of upcycling.  They have discovered how to conjunctionally reuse waste materials from other industries as well – such as natural stone waste.

 

At noon Thursday, Sept. 26, Jeff Mendez, Global Communications Director of ERS International will present “Recycling and Upcycling of Electronic Waste,” in the ISTC’s next “Sustainability in Action” seminar/webinar.  The presentation will be broadcast live from Toronto, Canada and can be viewed at the Stephen J. Warner Conference Room at ISTC (One Hazelwood Dr., Champaign), or at Room  218 Mechanical Engineering Building at U of I (1206 W Green St. in Urbana).

 

The webinar will also be simulcast live by registering at https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/198927695.  The presentation will also be archived on the ISTC website www.istc.illinois.edu for later viewing.

 

Engineer Introduces Thermally-Reversible Polymer to Desalination

According to water.org, 780 million people lack access to clean water. The need to provide access to clean water is one of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering.

 

At noon this Thursday, Sept 12, Dr. Xinying Wang will present “Polymer Assisted Forward Osmosis for Desalination and Water Reuse,” at U of I’s Mechanical Engineering Building, Rm. 218 (1206 W Green St. in Urbana, IL).

 

This webinar, as part of the ISTC’s Sustainable Technology Seminar Series “Sustainability in Action,” will be broadcast live and also archived on our website www.istc.illinois.edu for later viewing. If you cannot attend the event at Rm. 218 MEB, you may view the webinar live by registering at: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/864226367. It will also be viewable live at the ISTC Conference Room at 1 Hazelwood Dr., Champaign, IL.

 

Dr. Wang is a Chemical Engineer at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, Prairie Research Institute. The following is his abstract for the seminar:

 

“Forward osmosis (FO) for dewatering/desalination applications has received increasing interest due to its potential use of low grade thermal energy, ability to operate at low pressure, and  reduced tendency to foul. Developments in FO are primarily focused on two areas: (a) expanding the availability of draw solutions that generate high osmotic pressure; are easily separated from water using physical and/or chemical means; are non-corrosive, nontoxic, and chemically stable; exhibit near neutral pH; and are inexpensive and (b) developing membranes that exhibit high flux and suitable salt rejection under FO conditions. In this presentation we focus on the challenges of draw solution utilization and regeneration.

 

In this presentation, we will talk about a forward osmosis desalination process that employs a temperature-reversible polymer to recycle the draw solute. In our work, a high concentration MgSO4 solution is used as draw solution. After forward osmosis, the diluted draw solution is mixed with a thermally-reversible polymer, poly (propyleneoxide) –co-poly (ethyleneoxide). This polymer extracts water from the diluted draw solution and the whole solution forms two phases, a polymer-water phase and a concentrated MgSO4 solution phase (bottom). The bottom MgSO4 solution phase is recycled back to the forward osmosis module, while the polymer-water phase is heated above the polymer’s cloudy point (60⁰C) to recycle the polymer and to produce clean water.  Experimental details on the process will be presented.”

 

 

Engineer to Share Latest Research for Recycling LCD Screens

Old TVs and monitors are becoming old TVs and monitors at record rates as screen size and new capabilities grow and prices shrink. Most of their toxins build up in landfills where they can leach into the environment. If it works sell it or donate it. If it doesn’t,  check with a local repair shop to see if they will refurbish it. See if you can return it to the store where you purchased it, or watch for a recycling day from your local waste management service. Commercial electronics recyclers may charge you to drop off your old TV.

 

As researchers are constantly improving television technology they are also advancing technology for recycling their complex remains at the end of their lives. At noon this Thursday, Sept. 5, Dr. Fu Zhao, Associate Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University-West Lafayette will present “Recycling of Liquid Crystal Displays for Maximum Resource Recovery” as part of the ISTC’s Sustainable Technology Seminar Series “Sustainability in Action.”

 

Dr. Zhao will be speaking at ISTC with a live webinar of the presentation broadcast in Room 218 MEB).  You can also register at: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/428568375 to watch the broadcast live.

 

Here is Dr. Zhao’s abstract: “Hundreds of millions of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) will reach their end of life in the next few years, and most of them have cold cathode fluorescent lamps as the backlights. These mercury containing backlights bring challenges to the end of life treatment of LCDs. Communications with electronic waste recyclers indicate that recycling LCDs using available equipment and tools is not profitable in U.S. due to high equipment/labor cost. With the support of an EPA P3 Phase I grant, our team at Purdue University developed a four-step procedure for LCD disassembling. Appropriate tools for these steps have been designed and fabricated and the team was able to limit the total disassembling time to less than five minutes, the breakeven time suggested by e-waste recyclers. All the tools can be readily built using low-cost tools available on the market. The disassembling time can be shortened further after optimization. Toward the end of the talk, lessons learned from the project and challenges associated with developing sustainable electronic products will be discussed.”

2013 Naturally Illinois Expo

 


The Prairie Research Institute presents the fifth annual Naturally Illinois Expo on March 8-9, 2013, on the University of Illinois Urbana campus. Families, teachers, and students of all ages are invited to attend and enjoy exhibits, demonstrations and hands-on activities that showcase the work of the Institute, home of the State Scientific Surveys (Illinois Natural History SurveyIllinois State Archaeological SurveyIllinois State Geological SurveyIllinois State Water Survey, and Illinois Sustainable Technology Center).  Continue reading “2013 Naturally Illinois Expo”

Landfill Harmonic: An Inspirational Story

In Cateura, Paraguay (South America) there is extreme poverty.  The people make most of their living from collecting sellable items from the huge landfill near their town, and drug addictions and gang violence are common among the youth.  One day two orchestra directors, Luis Szarán (Sonidos de la Tierra) and Favio Hernán Chávez Morán (Recycled Orchestra), got a “hair-brained” idea to give free music lessons to the poor children in Paraguay.

 

“Music is the smile of the soul” said Director Szarán.

 

The directors wanted to give purpose to Paraguay’s children to help prevent some of the social issues associated with extreme poverty. They teamed up with Creative Visions and started in Cateura with five violins.  Fifty children showed up for lessons.

 

How did the directors get instruments to all the students?  Continue reading “Landfill Harmonic: An Inspirational Story”

2012 Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards

A pair of environmental recognition programs have joined together to honor Illinois organizations that have accomplished significant achievements in protecting the environment and helping to sustain the future. Winners of the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards and the Illinois Campus Sustainability Compact Awards Program were presented during a luncheon in Oak Brook, IL.  Continue reading “2012 Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards”

Orange and Blue Go Green

Sustainability Week 2012

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) participated in several events during the 2012 UI Sustainability Week, October 22-26, 2012. The center was one of the stops on the Sustainability Scavenger Hunt. ISTC gave out biodegradable plastic sports bottles at its location in the hunt and has also donated reusable tote bags made from recycled plastic as part of the grand prize for the winners of the hunt.

 

ISTC also was at the Orange & Blue Go Green Sustainability Expo on Thursday, October 25 from 11:00am-2:00pm. The Sustainability Expo was located in the Lobby of the Student Dining & Residential Programs Building (SDRP), 301 E. Gregory Drive, Champaign. ISTC had a table with information on our Center and ways to be more sustainable as well as a few sustainable giveaways.

 

ISTC hosted the award winning documentary Bag it: Is your life too plastic? from 7:00pm-9:00pm on Thursday, October 25. Dr. BK Sharma, Senior Chemist at ISTC gave a 15 minute presentation before the film on how he converts plastic bags, non-recyclable, and not easily recyclable plastic into oil to potentially be used as fuel or lubricants.

 

Award-winning documentary “Bag It” comes to the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is hosting a screening of the  award-winning environmental documentary Bag It at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center located at One E. Hazelwood Dr., Champaign, IL 61820 on October 25, 2012 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. Click here for a map and directions.

 

Bag It follows “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he tries to make sense of our dependence on plastic bags. Although his quest starts out small, Jeb soon learns that the problem extends past landfills to oceans, rivers and ultimately human health.

 

The average American uses about 500 plastic bags each year, for about twelve minutes each. This single-use mentality has led to the formation of a floating island of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean more than twice the size of Texas.

 

The film explores these issues and identifies how our daily reliance on plastic threatens not only waterways and marine life, but human health, too. Two of the most common plastic additives are endocrine disruptors, which have been shown to link to cancer, diabetes, autism, attention deficit disorder, obesity and infertility.

 

The screening will also include a short talk about ISTC’s research project “Plastics to Oil” in which Dr. B.K. Sharma will discuss how he uses pyrolysis to convert plastic bags into oil. One potential use for the oil is as a substitute for food oils in biolubricants.

 

ISTC recognizes the importance of reducing single-use plastic use for the safety of its community and the environment. Its mission is to be at the forefront of environmental and energy research and innovative technological advances that protect natural resources and reduce wastes.  ISTC imparts this knowledge to the general public, businesses, state agencies, and the scientific community to improve the environment and economic viability of Illinois, the nation, and the world.

 

Screening Date: October 25, 2012

Screening Time: 7:00 to 9:00 P.M.

Screening Location: Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, One E. Hazelwood Dr., Champaign, IL 61820

Admission:  Free

This event is open to the public.