15-21 Nov: GreenSTEMS @ Science Week

This year saw Science Week, a celebration of scientific research at the University of York, run for the second time. Ten student societies and groups helped to organise a range of fascinating events.

Each day of the week featured an evening event, organized jointly by two societies. Among these was “Sustainable Chemistry and Beyond”, an event run by greenSTEMS, in collaboration with ChemSoc, on Friday 20th November.

Tom and Erin, despite some technical and organizational issues, managed to put together an interesting mix of talks and live experiments!

Dr. Ian Ingram from the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence (GCCE) demystified the “traditional” way of classifying products and processes as “green”, analysing some real life examples of good and bad practices in the field. At the end of the talk, Tom showed how, simply using microwaves, some components from orange peels can be extracted and used as precursors for the production of bioplastics, in a completely petroleum-free process!

Nichola Egan, a PhD student also at the GCCE, took the audience on a  journey towards the sustainable production of antioxidants from discarded lignin-rich materials.

The event was concluded by Dr. Tim Doheny-Adams, who works at the York Environmental Sustainability Institute with Professor Sue Hartley. Tim’s work is fascinating, investigating greener plant defense systems as an alternative to the use of environmentally harmful pesticides.

In light of predicted climate change effects on crop productivity and of issues with feeding the growing global population, the importance of finding resilient, safe, and sustainable strategies to ensuring food supplies is critical. In his presentation Tim described some of the common issues with current practices, presenting examples of agrochemicals which contaminate soil, and affect our safety and those of pollinators, key players in plants reproduction and biodiversity.

The alternative he suggested is a technique called biofumigation, which consists of dispersing a solid glucose-derivative (glucosinolate) on the soil surface. This bio-derived compound would gradually hydrolyse and liberate isothiocyanates, reactive gasses which have been proven to kill pests in the concentrations of study. The residue remaining in the ground is a sugar-like structure which is easily biodegradable and not a risk for water fields or soil ecosystems. Tim’s presentation received a great response from the audience, with loads of challenging and curious questions! Let’s hope this technique gets taken up soon!

Celebrating International Women’s day with ScienceGrrl at the Yorkshire Museum

Which better occasion in the year to celebrate Women in Science and Science itself than the International Women’s day?!

Last Sunday greenSTEMers Giulia and Maria joined the Science Grrl  team at the Yorkshire Museum, along with several other researchers from a wide array of disciplines, such as Nuclear Physics, Astronomy, Psychology, Chemistry and Biology.

  

Giulia, on the left photo, drew the connections between an orange and a bottle of washing-up liquid: everyone was amazed to discover the incredible potentiality of such fruit, not only as a source of Vitamin C, but also for the production of bioplastics, detergents and aromas!

I brought in a 3D model of a protein secondary structure, complemented by a stick&balls representation of water which I’ve made in the morning with my colleague from Biology, Laziana! Together and in this colourful way we’ve introduced young visitors into the world of Biochemistry!

Other insights into Biology and Structural Biology were given by Hannah, Katie and Sandra, whereas Danielle, Rachel and Julia shared their knowledge in Chemistry and Green Chemistry.

Gemma, the chair of Science Grrl-York, and her colleagues from Nuclear Physics brought along a Geiger counter, some radioactive rocks and a gamma ray detector, to explain radioactivity, the technology behind the detectors and the importance of the electromagnetic spectrum. A view of the sky through the Cosmodome was also presented by physicists from the Astrocampus team. Amy from Atmosperic Chemistry entertained the youngsters showing how to make clouds in a bottle…so fun! 😀

There was a good turnout of families strolling around the museum, with the children being as enthusiastic and curious as their accompanying parents!

It certainly was a great opportunity to take our projects out of the lab, demonstrating how scientific impact is conceived by bright minds and passion, regardless the gender, with the aim of inspiring the new generation of enthusiast scientists!

  

— Contributed by Maria M. Razalan

greenSTEMS exhibition @ YorNight 2014

On 26th September, the city of York was one among the 200+ European cities simultaneously hosting Researchers’ Night events! How mind-blowing the thought of thousands of researchers across the continent pulling off what was a fantastic occasion for social participation and knowledge sharing! I could lose myself wondering about all the individuals involved, all getting ready to set up their activities and exhibitions and to share the passion for their work. So many life-stories behind each one, so many ambitions, efforts, hopes! GreenSTEMS was there, in its first public exhibit and it was just incredible! Our exhibition run from 4pm until 9.30pm as part of the Smart & Green section of YorNight event, and was located in a dedicated marquee in King’s Manor, a terrific venue in the heart of town!

 

At our stand there were chemists, biologists and environmental scientists eager to take you with them in a journey around the world, a sustainable one! In fact, the overarching theme of the greenSTEMS exhibition was ‘waste’,  and how we should start considering it as a rich resource rather than a mere refuse. Incredible volumes of  waste biomass are produced all around the world, filling up landfill sites and being utterly under-utilised.  Yet these natural, renewable materials conceal an enormous value and could play a revolutionary role in our future economic, social and environmental development! Sustainability is all about joining together three aspects and this is the message that the greenSTEMS team was enthusiastically delivering last night!

Jen Chapman, our representative for Environment studies, introduced our visitors to the cost and impact of bio-waste around the world with the aid of a big map behind us displaying several samples of agri-food waste being investigated by our sustainable scientists: Chinese seaweed, Indian straw, British pea-pods, Brazilian coffee grounds, etc.

Our chemists group made by Dr Ian Ingram, Dr Jennie Dodson, Dr Tom Dugmore, Ceren Ulger and myself, presented the example of a value-added chemical which can be extracted from waste-orange peel: limonene. This versatile, scented, oily compound can be used as natural and safer alternative to petrochemical-based solvents for its outstanding ability to dissolve polymers and other materials. During the exhibition we demonstrated to visitors – especially children! – how just few drops of limonene could make a polystyrene packaging bead quickly “disappear”! Several potential applications of this interesting bio-based solvent are being explored in Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence in York.

  

A large number of biologists have also manned our stand, describing the recent successes of the “Gribble project”  – also recently featured in a report on Channel 4 – developed by researchers at the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) in York. Our members Kyriakos Tzafestas, Nicola Oates, Nurashikin Ihsan and Federico Sabbadin from CNAP – pictured herein – invited visitors to meet the gribbles and closely watch them moving around and eating small woody sticks. What makes these tiny marine species so exciting is their ability to digest ligno-cellulosic material into simple sugars, which could then be fermented into second-generation bio-fuels – i.e. those produced from waste biomass rather than from dedicated crops that could dangerously compete with food supplies.

   

The turn out at King’s Manor was impressive, and the feedback from visitors was really amazing! Children were absolutely captivated by our ‘magic’ quick experiments and loved digging their hands – and noses! – into the different samples of biomass on display! Likewise, adult guests seemed fascinated by the scale of the bio-waste issue and opportunity and actively engaged in detailed discussions with our researchers.

What I found as one of the greatest outcomes of this event was the wonderful encouragement we received as a group for our ambitious interdisciplinary initiative. As some visitors and colleague presenters pointed out, it is big challenge to get disciplines to communicate and work together. Historically, the various disciplines of natural and social sciences have progressed fairly independently with very little overlap – and with a fair amount of preconceptions on one another. To date, the serious global challenges we are facing, such as climate change and resource wastefulness, are calling for joint action by all disciplines and sectors in order to timely develop means for our sustainable development. Through greenSTEMS, we hope to catalyse this much needed interaction among York scientists as they – WE! –  will play a determinant role in the next generation’s technological development. YorNight was a fantastic occasion for us to get out and interact with members of the public as well as with other researchers and projects! Keep up with our upcoming events and other exciting projects starting this academic year!

— Giulia Paggiola (Chair of greenSTEMS)