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Sean Nash

New fabric makes urban heat islands more bearable | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240613161204.htm

HSR HSR-2025 science environmental engineering physics biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • This year has already seen massive heatwaves around the globe, with cities in Mexico, India, Pakistan and Oman hitting temperatures near or past 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
  • In tests under the Arizona sun, the material kept 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than the broadband emitter fabric used for outdoor endurance sports and 8.9 degrees Celsius (16 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than the commercialized silk commonly used for shirts, dresses and other summer clothing.
  • "You can save a lot of cooling, electricity and energy costs because this is a passive process," Sui said.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Spectrally engineered textile for radiative cooling against urban heat islands. Science, 2024; 384 (6701): 1203 DOI: 10.1126/science.adl0653
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
       
      I'm not yet convinced of the feasibility of this one, but this might provide a spark for someone. Some types of materials engineering like this is done on a nanoscale, which may not be the best for what we can do... but I believe there is space here for exploring composite materials with different properties to engineer better outcomes than what we're currently dealing with.
  • Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
     
    "With applications in clothing, construction and food storage, the new textile reduces heat from both the sun and thermal radiation from nearby buildings"
Sean Nash

Study traces an infectious language epidemic | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240513105214.htm

LLM ChatGPT language trace cause & effect study Reddit COVID words potential research idea computer science statistical analysis mathematic behavioralscience questions HSR HSR-2025 science

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Rho's work is grounded in a social science framework called Fuzzy Trace Theory that was pioneered by Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor of psychology and a collaborator on this Virginia Tech project. Reyna has shown that individuals learn and recall information better when it is expressed in a cause and effect relationship, and not just as rote information. This holds true even if the information is inaccurate or the implied connection is weak. Reyna calls this cause-and-effect construction a "gist."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      Fuzzy Trace Theory looks interesting for this, and perhaps many other reasons. I want to learn more about this myself, and I'm wondering if this theory could be put to work in other potential behavioral science projects. What do you think?
Sean Nash

Simple new process stores CO2 in concrete without compromising strength - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240626173558.htm

HSR HSR-2025 concrete materials science engineering physics chemistry potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • By using a carbonated -- rather than a still -- water-based solution during the concrete manufacturing process, a Northwestern University-led team of engineers has discovered a new way to store carbon dioxide (CO2) in the ubiquitous construction material.
  • Not only could the new process help sequester CO2 from the ever-warming atmosphere, it also results in concrete with uncompromised strength and durability.
  • "The cement and concrete industries significantly contribute to human-caused CO2 emissions,"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • instead of injecting CO2 while mixing all the ingredients together, they first injected CO2 gas into water mixed with a small amount of cement powder. After mixing this carbonated suspension with the rest of the cement and aggregates, they achieved a concrete that actually absorbed CO2 during its manufacturing
  • After analyzing their carbonated concrete, Rotta Loria and his colleagues found its strength rivaled the durability of regular concrete.
  • based on our experiments, we show the strength might actually be even higher. We still need to test this further
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
       
      It is a good sign when you read: "We still need to test this further!"
  • It could be used in beams, slabs, columns, foundations -- everything we currently use concrete for."
  • "The findings of this research underline that although carbonation of cement-based materials is a well-known reaction, there is still room to further optimize the CO2 uptake through better understanding of the mechanisms tied to materials processing,"
  • Journal Reference: Xiaoxu Fu, Alexandre Guerini, Davide Zampini, Alessandro F. Rotta Loria. Storing CO2 while strengthening concrete by carbonating its cement in suspension. Communications Materials, 2024; 5 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s43246-024-00546-9
  • Sean Nash on 02 Jul 24
     
    Know anyone who works with concrete that might let you experiment? I had a student back in the day who did this. They incorporated plastic polymer beads into standard concrete molds for strength testing.
Sean Nash

Researchers Discover New Mechanism to Cool Buildings While Saving Energy - 0 views

www.enn.com/index.php

potential research idea HSR HSR-2025 building engineering materials materialsscience civilengineering heat cool energy conservation construction

shared by Sean Nash on 13 Aug 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 13 Aug 24
     
    This one is dripping with feasibility it seems...
Sean Nash

Electrified charcoal sponge soaks up CO2 from the air - 1 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...s-up-co2-directly-from-the-air

CO2 carbondioxide climatechange charcoal electricity HSR HSR-2025 science environmental engineering chemistry biology physics potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • With a little bit of electric charge, the sponge-like charcoal material used in household water filters can also capture carbon dioxide from air, researchers report in the journal Nature. The advance could provide a low-cost, efficient route for removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
  • For the material, the researchers turned to an activated charcoal sponge, a porous substance with a large surface area. The material is commonly found in household purifiers to capture chemicals and toxins from water. Activated charcoal cannot efficiently capture carbon dioxide from air normally. But chemist Alexander Forse and his colleagues proposed that inserting charged, reactive particles into activated charcoal could turn it into a direct air capture sorbent.
  • The researchers charged the activated charcoal cloth in a battery-like setup. They used the cloth like one electrode in a battery, placing it in a solvent solution with an opposite electrode. When they passed electricity through the device, charged hydroxide ions accumulate in the tiny pores of the charcoal cloth.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Tests showed that the resulting sorbent material rapidly captured carbon dioxide from ambient air by reacting with hydroxides.
  • One downside to the material is that its performance decreases under humidity. The researchers are working to fix that, and are also to increase the quantity of carbon dioxide that the material can capture.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
       
      Seems like a potential engineering challenge to me. I think it would be immediately interesting to figure out more of the detail of what they've done here... and run some quick feasibility tests. Can we easily replicate with available materials? Can we measure the CO2 uptake with simple probes? When testing different versions of the same material, can we compare results with a microscopic examination of the material to potentially correlate a particular construction with better performance? Could we perhaps then suggest best materials for certain circumstances? Could we even create materials that perform better?
  • Sean Nash on 15 Jun 24
     
    "When researchers ran a charge through charcoal sponges commonly used in home water filters, they discovered a low-cost, low-energy route to remove CO2 from the air"
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