Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 08/10/2007
This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here.
Titles here, abstracts below:
- Regulations and market trends in lead-free and halogen-free electronics
- Children's environmental health world wide web resource sampler
- Potato chip flavoring boosts longevity of concrete
- Toxicity testing without animals
- Democratic technologies? The final report of the Nanotechnology Engagement Group (NEG)
- Nano-boric acid makes motor oil more slippery
- Act for resource recycling of electrical and electronic equipment and vehicles: English translation [Korea RoHS]
- Xerox launches line of 'green paper'
1. Regulations and market trends in lead-free and halogen-free electronics
Author: Nie, Lei; Pecht, Michael; Ciocci, Richard
Source: Circuit World, v33 n2 (2007), pp 4-9
Abstract: Design/methodology/approach – This work achieves its objective by discussing the various international environmental regulations pertaining to electronics manufacturing and relating the industry reactions to those regulations. It also provides the market trends related to lead- and halogen-free products. The electronics industry is pursuing lead-free solders and halogen-free FRs, in part due to regulations. However, the paper includes examples of how the industry is successful in implementing environmentally friendly changes.
Findings – The authors compared regulations from Japan, the European Union, the USA, and China. While the regulations themselves vary in scope, industry actions to find alternatives do have common purposes. Electronics manufacturers recognize that environmentally motivated changes are beneficial in terms of waste minimization.
Research limitations/implications – Electronics manufacturers that are interested in green design will benefit from understanding present regulations. They will also benefit from the included examples of product and process improvement for the purpose of environmental compatibility.
Originality/value – This paper derives its perspective from a similar review of literature and company findings that the authors completed in 2006. As refinement of the regulations has continued, the electronics industry has developed improvements in basic materials and processes.
2. Children's environmental health world wide web resource sampler
Source: Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce, 2007
Abstract: Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce is a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations, and health sciences libraries which provides timely, convenient access to selected public health resources on the Internet.
This sampler provides information on children's environmental health, public health, asthma, childhood cancer, food safety, funding, lead poisoning prevention, hazardous substances, health policy, epidemiology and health statistics, and computer-based learning.
Link: http://phpartners.org/cehir/sampler.html
3. Potato chip flavoring boosts longevity of concrete
Source: ScienceDaily, August 6, 2007
Abstract: The ingredient that helps give "salt & vinegar" potato chips that tangy snap is the key to a new waterproof coating for protecting concrete from water damage, according to a recent study.
Awni Al-Otoom and colleagues in Jordan point out that concrete's unique properties have made it the world's most widely used structural material.
Concrete, however, is so porous that water soaks in, corroding steel reinforcing bars and meshes that strengthen concrete roads and buildings and causing cracks as water expands and contracts during freeze-thaw cycles. Sealants are commercially available, but they have serious shortcomings, the study notes.
In the new report, researchers describe the use of sodium acetate as an inexpensive and environmentally friendly concrete sealant. One of sodium acetate's many uses is in flavored potato chips.
In laboratory studies using freshly made concrete, the researchers showed that sodium acetate seeps into pores in concrete and then hardens and crystallizes upon exposure to water. The resultant swelling blocks entry of additional moisture, they said. Under dry conditions, the crystals shrink back to their original size and allow moisture to evaporate.
The net result is "a significant reduction in water permeability," that "can be expected to increase the service life of the concrete," the report said.
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070806101941.htm
4. Toxicity testing without animals
Author: Arnaud, Celia Henry
Source: Chemical & Engineering News, August 6, 2007, pp34-35
Abstract: Animal testing has long been considered the gold standard for environmental toxicology, the determination of the toxicity of chemicals found in the environment. But animal testing takes a long time and entails the deaths of animals to acquire data. Even more, the results can't always be extrapolated to humans. Environmental toxicologists are turning to high-throughput methods developed in the pharmaceutical industry as alternatives to the traditional methods and as ways to prioritize chemicals for more in-depth testing.
A recent report from the National Research Council (NRC) recommends the development of cell-based screening methods as a replacement for animal testing. Although toxicologists share the vision that cell-based assays will eliminate the need for animal testing, they suspect it will take many years to become a reality. In the shorter term, high-throughput methods could help prioritize chemicals for current time-consuming methods of toxicity testing, says Robert Kavlock, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Center for Computational Toxicology in Research Triangle Park.
Link: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/85/8532sci1.html
5. Democratic technologies? The final report of the Nanotechnology Engagement Group (NEG)
Author: Gavelin, Karen; Wilson, Richard; Doubleday, Robert
Source: Involve, 2007
Abstract: In laboratories across the world, new scientific territory is being uncovered everyday; territory that offers groundbreaking opportunities for society, as well as new risks and unexpected challenges. Just as yesterday’s science and technology has contributed to shaping today’s world, these new technologies will help shape the world of tomorrow. The power of technology is clear, but its governance is not. Who or what makes these world-shaping decisions? And in whose interests are they made? These are the questions posed by a growing number of researchers, NGOs, citizens, politicians and scientists who seek to challenge the way that science and technology is governed and invent new ways to democratise the development of new technologies. This report documents the progress of six projects that have sought to do just that – by engaging the public in discussions about the governance and development of nanotechnologies.
In 2005, a group of pioneering projects, from various contexts and with different motivations, set off on separate voyages into this new territory. Their mission: to explore how we might ensure that future developments in nanotechnology are governed in the interests of the many, not the few. In short, to bring democracy to these new, unchartered territories. Democratic Technologies? follows the journeys of these projects, and the scientists, citizens and civil servants who joined them.
This is the report of the Nanotechnologies Engagement Group (NEG), a body convened by Involve with the support of the Office of Science and Innovation’s Sciencewise scheme, and the Universities of Cambridge and Sheffield. Our role has been to observe and support the pioneers of nanotechnology public engagement and log their experiences for the benefit of future journeys into the interface between democracy and technology.
Link: http://www.involve.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.viewSection&intSectionID=554
6. Nano-boric acid makes motor oil more slippery
Source: Argonne National Laboratory, 2007
Abstract: One key to saving the environment, improving our economy and reducing our dependence on foreign oil might just be sitting in your mother's medicine cabinet.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have begun to combine infinitesimal particles of boric acid — known primarily as a mild antiseptic and eye cleanser — with traditional motor oils in order to improve their lubricity and by doing so increase energy efficiency.
Ali Erdemir, senior scientist in Argonne's Energy Systems Division, has spent nearly 20 years investigating the lubricious properties of boric acid. In 1991, he received an R&D 100 award — widely considered the "Oscar of technology" — for showing that microscopic particles of boric acid could dramatically reduce friction between automobile engine parts. Metals covered with a boric acid film exhibited coefficients of friction lower than that of Teflon, making Erdemir's films the slickest solids in existence at that time. But driven by a conviction that he could fashion boric acid into an even better lubricant, Erdemir continued to chase the ultimate frontier: a perfectly frictionless material. Glimpsing the potential of nanotechnology, Erdemir went smaller — 10 times smaller — and was astonished by the behavior of much thinner boric acid films. "If you can produce or manufacture boric acid at the nanoscale, its properties become even more fantastic," he said.
Reducing the size of the particles to as tiny as 50 nanometers in diameter — less than one-thousandth the width of a human hair — solved a number of old problems and opened up a number of new possibilities, Erdemir said. In previous tests, his team had combined the larger boric acid particles with pure poly-alpha-olefin, the principal ingredient in many synthetic motor oils. While these larger particles dramatically improved the lubricity of the pure oil, within a few weeks gravity had started to separate the mixture. By using smaller particles, Erdemir created a stable suspension of boric acid in the motor oil.
Link: http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2007/ES070803.html
7. Act for resource recycling of electrical and electronic equipment and vehicles: English translation [Korea RoHS]
Translators: Yun, Jun-sik; Park, In-sung
Source: Eco-Frontier, 2007
Abstract: Since early 2003, Korea has considered a law corresponding to the EU regulations for electrical and electronics products and automobiles. It has now adopted the Act for Resource Recycling of Electrical and Electronics Equipment and Automobiles, which includes all key regulatory actions of the five European Union directives for those products.
Link: http://www.kece.eu/data/Korea_RoHS_ELV_April_2007_EcoFrontier.pdf
8. Xerox launches line of 'green paper'
Source: GreenBiz.com, July 31, 2007
Abstract: Xerox Corp. has introduced a new environmentally friendly digital printing paper that can be produced using fewer trees, chemicals and energy.
The Xerox High Yield Business Paper uses 90 percent of the tree, compared 45 percent used in the production of traditional digital printing paper, Xerox said. That's because Xerox mechanically grinds the wood into papermaking pulp for the High Yield Business Paper, rather that using a chemical pulping process which has a lower yield.
The paper also is made in a plant that uses hydroelectricity to partially power the pulping process, leading to the 75 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Production calls for using less water than its traditional counterpart.
Link: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=35531
You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly interested in monitoring, and who else should see GREENLIST. An online search of the TURI Library catalog can be done at http://slk060.liberty3.net/turi/ for greater topic coverage.
This page updated Friday August 10 2007