2022 Environmental Chemistry

David Huang  Paper Article Development of new, sustainable renewable energy sources to reduce carbon emissions has been a hot topic for the past decade. Equally important has been developing rechargeable batteries that can store this energy. Zn-metal batteries have been an attractive candidate because of their inherent safety, fast charging/discharging capabilities, low cost, and environmental friendliness. However, these batteries have not yet been commercialized in large part because of issues involving the Zn-metal anode. Research has been conducted to deal with these issues, however solving one issue has led to others, such as compromising the safety of the battery, or hindering performance.  The research paper I chose focuses on using chitosan-zinc electrolytes for zinc metal batteries. Chitosan is an eco-friendly and biodegradable biopolymer derived from chitin, a naturally abundant polymer that is widely available in crustacean shells. The paper talks extensively on t...

Ben Klein News article (New York Times) Scientific paper (Energy Science and Engineering) Both the article and paper that I chose focused on the skepticism surrounding “blue hydrogen” fuel as a low-emission alternative to traditional fossil fuels. The article, titled, “For Many, Hydrogen Is the Fuel of the Future. New Research Raises Doubts,” was published in the New York Times in August of 2021. It cites a scientific paper also published in August 2021 in the journal Energy Science and Engineering titled, “How green is blue hydrogen?”. This paper investigates the claim that “blue hydrogen” can be used as a lower-emission source of energy instead of the more common “gray hydrogen”, natural gas, and coal.  The study first discusses the different types of hydrogen fuel. According to the study, 96% of all hydrogen fuel is generated from fossil fuels. Hydrogen generated from coal gasification is called “brown hydrogen”, whereas hydrogen generated from the heating and pressurization of...

Sofia Perez News Article (The New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/climate/global-warming-climate-tipping-point.html Scientific Article (Science): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950 The overarching topic of the news article and scientific article that I reviewed concerned the degree of climate change with the current level of warming even with the Paris Agreement in place. The NYT article was published in September of 2022 shortly thereafter the publishing of the Science article (also September of 2022). The Science article, titled: “Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points” conducted a massive literature review and synthesized a new list of core global and regional tipping points by defining thresholds, timescales, and impacts on these tipping points. They further illustrate how policy plays into preventing our world from reaching these tipping points which would bring us closer to being in danger of extreme climate c...

 News article (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/02/global-heating-is-turning-white-alps-green-study-finds Scientific article (Science): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn6697 The news and scientific articles I chose to evaluate for this post revolve around increasing vegetation and decreasing snow cover in the European Alps. The Guardian article was published in June of this year, following the publication of the Science article led by Professor Sabine Rumpf of the University of Basel, Switzerland. The Science article is titled “From white to green: Snow cover loss and increased vegetation productivity in the European Alps”. Motivated by documented changes in snow cover and vegetation associated with the Arctic, the authors of this journal article used satellite images of the European Alps to evaluate variations in these parameters over the course of 38 consecutive years. The authors of the Science article found that, in terms of vegeta...

  Seattle Times article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/aerosols-from-burning-fossil-fuels-are-masking-global-warming-uw-researchers-find/ Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01372-y I chose a news article from the Seattle Times titled “Aerosols from burning fossil fuels are masking global warming, UW researchers find.” The article was published in June of 2022 and referenced a research paper published in Nature earlier in that same month by Dvorak et. al. That paper was titled “Estimating the timing of geophysical commitment to 1.5 and 2.0 °C of global warming.” The authors of this study used a model to track temperature change up to the year 2100 following a hypothetical cessation of all emissions, a zero-emissions commitment or ZEC, in 2021. They found that a warming peak would be observed first, followed by a slow cooling period. My initial perception of the Seattle Times article was fairly positive. I appreciated that the author used...

Chem 474 Blog Post Assignment Claire Chen  Scientific paper:  https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/12221/2022/acp-22-12221-2022.pdf News article:  https://weather.com/en-IN/india/pollution/news/2022-09-27-scrubbing-aerosols-ended-up-accelerating-global-warming The article I choose is from "The weather channel," that draws on the connection between atmospheric aerosols and global warming. The article was published this year in late September, which is relatively recent. It referenced a scientific paper titled "Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing, "  published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and physics journal by the European Geoscience Union. This paper closely investigated the trend of the number of aerosols in the atmosphere and how it directly or indirectly affects the global temperature, radiant, cloud formation, and ocean sea level.  The scientific paper was collaborative work from multiple scientists around the glo...