Water

HyperSolar claims it is developing a zero carbon method of producing hydrogen gas from wastewater by harnessing solar energy. Hydrogen gas is a clean source of fuel in that, theoretically at least, the only waste product is water. But hydrogen gas does not occur naturally on Earth, and requires energy to create. Typically that energy comes from traditional, carbon dioxide-emitting sources, rendering hydrogen fuel rather less environmentally friendly than it has the potential to be. HyperSolar's work may mean truly clean, renewable hydrogen fuel could be a commercial reality sooner than we might have imagined. Read More

Water is essential to bring along - and drink - during long workouts. Yet cleaning water bottles between uses sometimes doesn't happen. It's hard to get in those long, tall bottles and feel you've gotten all the germs out. The FLEXR Sports Bottle is a new bottle that uses a biodegradable, collapsible liner to ensure the bottle is clean and ready for use. Read More

Whatever you call it - lavatory, privy, latrine, crapper, loo or dunny - most of us take the humble toilet for granted. But in many parts of the world the absence of sanitary waste disposal is not just inconvenient, it can cause deadly diseases such as hepatitis, dysentery, trachoma, typhoid and cholera. Enter Marc Deshusses, a Duke University environmental engineer who has envisioned an innovative yet simple waste disposal system designed specifically for Third World countries that can be constructed from everyday items. Now, as part of a broad ranging project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Deshusses has received $100,000 to perfect and test the system in the laboratory before producing a prototype to field-test in 18 months time. Read More

There are presently a number of products available that use ultraviolet light to kill microorganisms in drinking water. Many of these are used on the water after it has been dispensed, requiring users to wait before drinking it. Others are fairly large, or require the water to be within a certain temperature range. Philips Lighting, however, has just released a compact UV water disinfection device known as InstantTrust. It is said to kill bacteria instantly, at the point of use, and at any temperature. Read More

Water purifier manufacturer SteriPEN has updated its lineup of portable products, with a UV-based unit called the SteriPEN Freedom. Billed as the smallest, lightest and first rechargeable UV water purifier on the market, it disinfects up to 16 oz (0.5 L) of water in 48 seconds. Read More

Last July, in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the X PRIZE Foundation launched the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. As with previous X PRIZE competitions, this one was intended to encourage private sector scientific research, by offering a cash prize to whichever team could best meet a given challenge. In this case, teams had to demonstrate a system of their own making, that could recover oil from a sea water surface at the highest Oil Recovery Rate (ORR) above 2,500 US gallons (9,463.5 liters) per minute, with an Oil Recovery Efficiency (ORE) of greater than 70 percent. Today, the winning teams were announced. Read More

While you may feel quite virtuous when you leave all your glass containers out for recycling, you might be surprised to know that much of your colored glass won’t be used. That’s because even though there’s a fairly constant demand for recycled clear glass, glass in colors such as green, brown and blue isn’t all that sought-after, so many recycling centers don’t bother processing it. As a result, waste colored glass is now being stock-piled in some locations, waiting for a use. Thanks to research conducted at the University of Greenwich, however, that glass may soon be used for filtering pollutants out of ground water. Read More

Agilent Technologies has announced it will begin collaborations with the University of Arizona's Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering's BIO5 Institute to develop ways to detect and treat "emerging contaminants" such as steroids and antibiotics in drinking water. Read More

Two international teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The researchers found the huge mass of water feeding a black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away. The mass of water vapor is at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined and 100,000 times more massive than the sun. Read More