[Image above] Credit: Bharath Kishore, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Today is a big day for environmental scientists—it’s the 50th anniversary of Earth Day!
Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970, was founded in part because of increasing ecological awareness fueled by social unrest of the civil rights and anti-war movements. Since then, several big agreements and organizations have been created to protect the environment, and while they have helped in some ways, increased globalization has expanded the ecological footprint of the world’s wealthiest countries as well.
The American Museum of Natural History released a video showcasing some of the sobering statistics resulting from globalization, such as increased CO2 emissions and increased outbreaks of new infectious diseases originating in animals. Yet the video also notes some of the ways we have helped the planet, such as protecting more marine areas and using more renewable energy.
Credit: American Museum of Natural History, YouTube
Materials scientists in particular have played a big role in helping the planet by developing new environmentally friendly materials, processes, and technologies. In today’s CTT, check out some of the ways ceramic and glass materials have helped in recent years.
Engineering a cleaner, safer world
If this year hadn’t been the 100th anniversary of ferroelectricity, the January/February 2019 ACerS Bulletin theme would have fit the 50th anniversary of Earth Day quite well—“Ceramic materials engineer a cleaner, safer world.”
Two stories matched the cover theme in that issue—filtering safe drinking water through granulated ceramics and how glasses and ceramics are critical to a clean energy and mobility transition.
In December of last year, a review article also provided a nice overview of ceramics in water treatment and environmental remediation applications. Specifically, the review article looked at MXenes, the family of 2D transition metal carbides, carbonitrides, and nitrides.
Glass recycling and the circular economy
Over the past year, author April Gocha has contributed several CTT articles on the recycling cycle and how it is unraveling. While there is no easy solution to combat the problems with the current system, glass offers one way to cut down on our plastic waste.
The potential for continuous recycling of glass plays well into the idea of the circular economy, i.e., an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and promoting continual use of resources. The January/February 2020 issue of the International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology dives more deeply into this idea with the theme “Ceramics for the Circular Economy.”
There are many other ways ceramic and glass materials scientists have helped the planet, from finding new uses for recycled beverage straws to identifying new sources of high-value carbon materials to developing environmentally friendly alternatives for refractory binder materials.
You can explore more here under the CTT Environment category.