Light Cleanup

The sun is one of our primary sources of energy (unless you’re a cat—then, the point of a ray of sunshine is to sleep in it). Sunshine makes plants grow, keeps us from freezing to death, and can power our homes and workplaces.

You already know about photosynthesis, the process of plants using light to make energy. But have you ever heard of photocatalysis? Whoa—technical word alert! Let’s break that down.

Photo = light. Catalysis = making a chemical reaction work faster by using a catalyst (the thing that speeds up the reaction). In other words, photocatalysis is the use of light energy to make a chemical reaction work faster.

OK, so now you understand what photocatalysis IS, but what can it DO? Some pretty important stuff, as it turns out. Photocatalysis has been used for a while in air purifiers via ultraviolet light and titanium dioxide.

In 2018, a team of scientists led by Kyriakos Stylianou at the Laboratory of Molecular Simulation in Switzerland has discovered a way to use photocatalysis to clean water, as well. They’ve developed a system that can perform two types of photocatalysis at the same time. The first reaction splits water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen (bonus: the hydrogen can be used for fuel cells in things like satellites and space shuttles). The second reaction cleans organic pollutants out of the water.

There you go: a photocatalytic two-fer. Cleaner water and cleaner energy.

 

 

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Curriculum Reference Links

  • Chemical World / Systems and Interactions / 7:  Students should be able to investigate the effect of a number of variables on the rate of chemical reactions including the production of common gases and biochemical reactions
  • Chemical World / Energy / 9:  Students should be able to consider chemical reactions in terms of energy, using the terms exothermic, endothermic and activation energy, and use simple energy profile diagrams to illustrate energy changes
  • Chemical World / Sustainability / 10:  Students should be able to evaluate how humans contribute to sustainability through the extraction, use, disposal, and recycling of materials

 



Young Scientist Spotlight:
HANNAH HERBST

10 Fun Facts: The Hab

1. Aquarius is the the world’s only permanent undersea research station.

2. Most missions last about two or three weeks.

3. Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, beat his grandfather’s record month-long underwater expedition by spending 31 days on the Aquarius Reef Base in 2014.

4. The lab is used by NASA, the US Navy, and researchers and educators from around the globe for training and research.

5. The internet connection is better in the Hab than at many places above the water.

6. You have to swim underneath the facility in order to enter it.

7. Crew members are called aquanauts (NOT aquaNUTS!)

8. In 1994, a crew of scientists and divers had to evacuate Aquarius and climb up a rescue line to the surface in 15-foot seas after one of the habitat’s generators caught fire.

9. Aquarius was featured in the comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon in 2012.

10. The Hab was originally built in Texas.

10 Fun Facts: Coral

1. Reefs usually grow up on the east shore of land masses.

2. Parts of a coral reef can be harvested to make medications to treat cancers and other illnesses.

3. A coral reef isn’t a single organism; it’s actually a community of life that lives and thrives in one location.

4. Only about one percent of the world’s oceans contain coral reefs. That’s about the size of France.

5. Coral reefs are the largest biological structures on earth.

6. Corals are related to jellyfish and anemones.

7. There are over 2,500 species of corals. About 1,000 are the hard corals that build coral reefs.

8. Reefs grow where there are stronger wave patterns and currents to deliver food and nutrients.

9. The Great Barrier Reef is 500,000 years old.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10. Most coral reefs grow just about two centimeters per year.

10 Fun Facts: Invasive Species

1. To be considered invasive, a species must adapt to a new area easily. It must reproduce quickly. It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

2. Some invasive species are introduced accidentally, but others are brought deliberately.

3. Ship ballast water transports between 3,000 and 7,000 foreign species daily around the globe.

4. The total loss to the world economy as a result of invasive non-native species has been estimated at 5% of annual production

5. Invasive species have contributed to 40% of the animal extinctions that have occurred in the last 400 years.

6. Rodents are some of the worst invasive species.

7. There are an estimated 50,000 wild ring-necked parakeets in parks across London and southeast England.

8. Black and Norway rats annually consume stored grains and destroy other property valued over $19 billion.

9. Northern Pacific seastars reproduce very quickly. In one area where they were introduced, their population reached an estimated 12 million seastars in just two years.

10. Starlings were introduced to New York in the late 1800s, as part of an attempt to bring animals that were mentioned in Shakespeare‘s work to America.

Alert: Cuteness Overload!

Cutest animal in the ocean? Keep your Sea Otter. Forget the Dumbo Octopus. Axolotl? Close, but no cigar.

The winner of the Cutest Sea Animal prize is the Leaf Sheep Slug.

Yes, a slug. This tiny (5mm) animal, found near the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan, looks like a cartoon sheep covered in bright green leaves with pinkish purple tips.

Bonus: it’s one of the only animals that can perform photosynthesis, thanks to all the algae it eats.

Beat that.

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