‘Liquid wood’ emerges as tomorrow’s plastic

Brian Whitley

Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world’s dependence on plastics. But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste—too tough for bacteria to break down—now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Sensing a hazard, researchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic’s main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive.

Though they stumbled upon a great candidate early on, many US chemists had given up on it by the end of the 1990s. The failed wonder material: lignin, the natural compound that lends strength to trees. A waste product from paper production, much of the lignin supply is simply burned as fuel.

But while many scientists turned to other green options, a German company, Tecnaro, says it found the magic formula. Its “liquid wood” can be moulded like plastic, yet biodegrades over time.

Now, Tecnaro’s success could revive interest in lignin and propel the search for better and cheaper bioplastics.

“The lignin itself was misunderstood completely by [leaders in the field] and the majority of people,” says Simo Sarkanen, an environmental science professor at the University of Minnesota.

This past holiday season, nativity figurines made from Tecnaro’s “liquid wood” raised eyebrows among the bioplastic community. Sold as Arboform, the tough mixture is chock full of lignin—sometimes more than 50%, compared with the 30% threshold where many researchers would max out. The rest is fibre from wood, flax, or hemp, as well as a few additives.

Raw Arboform consists of dark brown pebble-sized pellets. It is processed using the same equipment used to make conventional plastic. The granules are dropped into a barrel and heated until they melt. Then the contents are highly pressurized and forced into a rigid mould—that of a figurine, perhaps.

As the liquid cools, Arboform actually conforms better than most plastics to the boundaries of complex moulds, says Benjamin Porter, a researcher with Tecnaro. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Chandrayaan spurs space ambition in IITs

Srinivas Laxman | TNN

Mumbai: When Chandrayaan-I soared into space last October, so did the dreams of many young and aspiring IITians keen on a career with the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Says a professor from IIT-Bombay’s aerospace engineering department, “Ever since Chandrayaan lifted off, space has become the magic word among students. They aspire to become rocket scientists and hope to play a role in taking India beyond the moon some day.’’ The fact that Isro has planned a manned mission to the low earth orbit (Leo, 2000 km above earth) in 2014, a mission to Mars around 2020 and another to the moon is a great source of excitement, he adds.

Two fourth year BTech aerospace students, Shashank Tamaskar and Kartavya Neema, are already doing a research project on interplanetary flight. Says Shashank, “Inspired by Chandrayaan-I, I am doing a study on a satellite’s flight from Leo to the moon.’’ He started work on the project in August 2008, when Chandrayaan was being primed for its historic launch, and hopes to complete it in ayear.

Asked if he would like to join Isro, he says, “Definitely, after I complete my studies.’’ The budding rocket scientist said that the focus among students earlier had been on designing planes, but “with the success of Chandrayaan, most of us are talking about designing rockets and satellites’’.

Kartavya says he is designing a flight path for a satellite to Mars. “For both of us, the inspiration came from Chandrayaan,’’ he confirms, adding thathe’d love to work at Isro.

Space is IITians’ new catchword
Mumbai: The success of Chandrayaan-I has resulted in an increasing number of IITians being attracted to space studies. Gyandeep Singh Momi, an aerospace student at IIT-Kharagpur, said, “Space has become the catchword here after Chandrayaan and most aerospace students want to be involved with space technology.’’

Gyandeep says that Chandrayaan also had a strong impact at their student festival earlier this year. “Nearly 50% of the emphasis was on rocketry. And we had a Nasa astronaut talking to us.’’

After India tested its nuclear weapons at Pokhran in May 1998, the number of applications received by BARC’s training school in Trombay increased manifold. Today, job openings at Isro carry more lucrative packages because a slew of projects is in the pipeline. The space buzz has infected IIT-Kanpur as well. S Kamle, head of the aerospace engineering department there, says, “Now, there’s a lot of excitement in our department about space, with students talking about rocketry and satellites.’’ They had been designing a rover for Chandrayaan-II, he adds, which is slated for launch in 2012. But during PM’s visit to Moscow in 2007, a decision was taken to carry a Russian rover and lander instead. IIT-Bombay is also designing a micro satellite which will be launched by Isro’s PSLV. The project started when Chandrayaan-I was steadily moving from the laboratory and workshop to the launch pad at Sriharikota.

Isro is well aware of this excitement. “The success of Chandrayaan-I has given confidence to students. More now want to be part of India’s space programme,’’ says its chief spokesperson S Satish.

Is it about saving the Earth or about Human Existence?

Strange that I never saw it that way. Hats-off to the guys who wrote this...

Myth: we have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment - making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so. -Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)

Couldn’t join IIT? Enrol for virtual university

D Suresh Kumar | TNN

Chennai: Soon, students across the country who have missed joining premier technical institutions, would get to learn from the expertise of academic brains that drive the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), through online course modules.

The Union HRD ministry has embarked on an initiative to launch a Virtual Technical University (VTU) to impart training to a large section of students who are keen to receive instructions in an ambience similar to the IITs and the IISc. “The proposed VTU will serve as a nodal agency for imparting training to the undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as the newly recruited teachers in the fields of science, technology, management, architecture, pharmacy and other applied areas. The university will provide flexible, credit-based technological courses to all registered participants using modern technology,” a HRD ministry official told TOI.

“The VTU will engage a large pool of talented faculty members from IITs, NITs, IISc and other national technological institutions, including the superannuated faculty. As such the huge reserve of well known superannuated faculty members from the IIT system, and IISc will play a vital role in content creation. The course material will be in the form of video tapes, web-based learning information as well as course ware in the form of reference material,” he said. The ministry also has plans to engage international faculty for developing online course modules in specialised fields such as railway technology.

The ministry had earlier this month approved a 111-page document prepared as part of the ‘National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology.’ The mission has laid special emphasis on launching the VTU. HRD minister Arjun Singh is slated to launch it at the Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati on February 3. “We plan to deliver the course through three modes—videobased lectures, web-based learning material and transmission of live lectures using satellite and Internetbased technology,” the official said. To begin with postgraduate programmes will be offered, for which a repository of video-based courses will be developed by experts. In the second phase, the VTU will offer course for undergraduate students.

WEB WORLD

Admissions open: Virtual varsity just a click away

Tamar Lewin

An Israeli entrepreneur with decades of experience in international education plans to start the first global, tuition-free internet university, a nonprofit venture he has named the University of the People.

“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” said the entrepreneur, Shai Reshef, founder of several internet-based educational businesses.

“The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free,” Reshef said. “We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works. Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, anyone who speaks English and has an internet connection.”

About four million students in the United States took at least one online course in 2007, according to a survey by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group devoted to integrating online learning into mainstream higher education. Online learning is growing in many different contexts.

Through the Open Courseware Consortium, started in 2001 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, universities around the world have posted materials for thousands of courses —as varied as Lambing and Sheep Management at Utah State and Relativistic Quantum Field Theory at MIT — all free to the public. Many universities now post their lectures on iTunes.

For-profit universities like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University have extensive online offerings. And increasingly, both public and private universities offer at least some classes online.

Outside the US, too, online learning is booming. Open University in Britain, for example, enrolls about 160,000 undergraduates in distance-learning courses.

The University of the People, like other internet-based universities,would have online study communities, weekly discussion topics, homework assignments and exams. But in lieu of tuition, students would pay only nominal fees for enrollment ($15 to $50) and exams ($10 to $100), with students from poorer countries paying the lower fees and those from richer countries paying higher ones. Reshef plans to start small, limiting enrollment at 300 students when the university goes online in the fall and offering only bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science. NYT NEWS SERVICE

Heavy metal presence in Indian toys causes harm for decades

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The colourful building blocks or toy houses might keep your children engaged for hours, but the heavy metals they contain could harm them for life. And it’s not just Chinese toys, but Indian toys which are the culprit too.

Welcoming the recent ban on the import of Chinese toys, city doctors and health experts said there was an urgent need to regulate Indian toys as well since as they too contained lead and cadmium, elements which could remain in one’s system for over two decades.

Citing a study conducted in 2006, Dr Abhay Kumar of the Delhi-based
NGO Toxic Links told TOI that they had tested both Indian and Chinese toys in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai and found a high concentration of lead and cadmium. “The lead content for instance was as high as 2,000 ppm as opposed to the permissible limit of 600 ppm,’’ said Dr Kumar. He explained that toy manufacturers often used lead and cadmium as stabilizers in toys, which come into contact with kids’ hands and also enter their system, given the tendency of children to put their fingers in their mouth.

Pointing out that lead is a confirmed neurotoxin (hampers the growing brain of a child), while cadmium is a nephrotoxin (adversely affects the kidney), Kumar said it was important that toy manufacturers adhere to the standards. “While we welcome the recent ban, it is also important that we have mandatory standards for Indian toys.’’ As of now, the only standards existing for toy manufacturers are those set by the Bureau of Indian Standards, which aren’t mandatory.

“The worrying part is that lead and cadmium, whether inhaled or eaten, remain in a person’s system for 20 years,’’ said physician at Jaslok Hospital and retired professor of medicine at state-run JJ Hospital Altaf Patel. He said lead causes intellectual backwardness in children and high blood pressure and aggressiveness in adults.

Lead in toys doesn’t worry city outlets

Priyanko Sarkar | TNN

Mumbai mein aadmi ka bharosa nahin, China item ka kya guarantee denge?’’ says Prakash Singh of Gulshan Toys at Crawford Market. The showroom stores all kinds of toys from China. The economic downturn may have affected business a bit, but the entire brouhaha over toxic elements like lead found in China-made toys, seems but a minor irritant for the city’s toy stores.

Instead, new and more exotic varieties of toys from China have made it to the market. So, for example, if your child is as fascinated by NSG commandos as the rest of the city, then there is an M-40 Commando Sniper gun with small plastic pellets for bullets? Or, if he’s a little less adventurous, then why not give him a heavy-duty truck that senses walls and avoids them and can be controlled from a battery-operated remote? The sniper gun retails for Rs 250 and the truck costs Rs 400 at Crawford Market.

And for just Rs 5,500, you can get a small version of a scooter which Nissar Ahmed, who owns Toy Factory at Mohammed Ali Road, says is quite a hit with the South Mumbai brigade. These monsters, three feet wide and up to four-and-a-half feet in height, weigh about 20 kilos.

Tech-savvy parents often get plastic mobiles, for Rs 150, for their children to play with from the time they are in the crib. A bucket-shaped gym that allows the baby to jump around is also a huge hit at Rs 750. There are even toys with Chinese names wrapped in dragon designs. A game called Gougou Sentri is a virtual car race between multi-players played via remote along a pre-defined route. Then there are bows with plastic arrows that stick to walls and swords that glow in the dark. Around five to seven pieces of each are sold daily.

Toys come from China via the sea and reach various warehouses across the country, with Kolkata and Chennai the most popular destinations. From here, wholesalers buy them before they reach retailers across the country.

Most retailers feign ignorance about the lead issue while a few say the entire incident is blown out of proportion. The toy sellers have also used the entire incident to increase profit margins. “A Rs 200 toy will now sell for Rs 280. There was no need to raise this issue anyway. China toys are the best. No complaints ever,’’ said another retailer.

Ahmed Jaffer of Famous Toys at Mohammed Ali Road claims: “Some Delhi shops use local plastic products with ‘Made in China’ stickers to sell their products. But everywhere else, only quality China toys sell. Those guys know how to make toys for the current generation at a price that is cost effective for parents. That’s why they will always remain popular.’’

M-40 Commando Sniper gun with plastic pellets Price: Rs 250

Heavy-duty truck Price: Rs 400