Category: Plants & Technology
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Rosemary Replacing Fossil Fuels
The humble rosemary plant could revolutionise the way that some oil-based products are made, providing a green alternative to the synthetics and fossil fuels presently used. Research scientists (explore) the feasibility of using the environmentally friendly antioxidants (AO) extracted from rosemary plants for the production of cosmetics, plastics and lubricants.
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Biofuel That Doesn’t Compete With Food Crops
China is the world's largest producer of rice, a crop that leaves behind roughly 230 million tons of rice straw each year — the stem and leaves are left behind after harvesting the grains… All that biological matter, or biomass, could in theory get converted into biofuel with the aid of germs that break it down into useful chemicals
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What Have You Done For Me Lately? Biofuels, Medicines, Bioplastics, Flavors, Pigments — Plants Deliver
he Plant Journal is pleased to present a series of invited peer-reviewed articles that describe processes that plants can or could use to convert their fixed carbon into fuels and other useful products. The articles were commissioned to provide an authoritative scientific backdrop to inform discussion in debates on finding alternative and reliable sources of carbon.
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How Green IS your green roof?
Stephan Brenneisen, a Swiss green roof specialist and ecologist, claims that many of the thin substrates on sedum roofs lose their effectiveness over time… [he] also found that many sedum roofs have minimal positive effects on storm water retention, energy use, or the urban climate — core arguments that have been used to justify the implementation of green roofs. Moreover, ecologists attribute rather limited biodiversity values to sedum roofs and prefer roofs that offer a secondary ha
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Food Or Fuel? What Do We Value Most?
In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled.
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Algae Cleans Emissions Then Becomes Biofuel
The Israeli company Seambiotic has found a way to produce biofuel by channeling smokestack carbon dioxide emissions through pools of algae that clean it. The growing algae thrives on the added nutrients, and become a useful biofuels.
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What the Lotus Taught the Engineers
The self-cleaning action of the lotus plant has intrigued researchers for decades, and recent studies done by researchers in several different groups have demonstrated the reasons behind the plant's unique abilities.