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Sunday, 22 March 2009

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Petrol from plastic waste

Sri Lanka has had its fair share of inventors. Once in a while, we hear of people coming up with novel ideas and inventions which could ease some of the tasks that we have to perform, reducing the burden on society.

Plastic waste is a serious environmental problem

Another such innovation to come up of late is the conversion of plastic waste into petrol. The inventor who is responsible for this worthwhile technology is Ananda Vithanage, a resident from Yatiyantota.

Vithanage has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Central Environment Authority (CEA) for a Rs 100 million project which would convert the serious environmental problem of plastic waste into petrol.

The project would be introduced under the CEA's National Waste Management Programme. The technology has been found to be correct and commercially viable by the Chemical Engineering Unit of the Moratuwa University. The CEA plans to set up a mini-conversion plant at a cost of Rs. 12 million at Yatiyantota, to process polythene and plastic waste to generate fuel under the pilot project.

The project is expected to produce 500 to 1000 litres of fuel per day, which in turn would save a lot of foreign exchange for the country.

It has been found that Rs. 15 had to be spent to produce a kilogram of plastic. Another Rs. 15 has to be spent to convert the same into fuel.

Today is World Water Day:

Shared Waters, Shared Opportunities

Today, we celebrate one of the most important days of the year for humans as well as all other beings on Planet Earth.

March 22 is the day dedicated to the precious liquid without which life would not have been possible. The 2009 event is being observed under the theme 'Shared Waters Shared Opportunities'. The theme focuses attention on waters that cross borders and link humans together.

There are 263 transboundary (running across more than one state) lakes and river basins which include the territories of 145 countries and covers half the Earth's land surface. There are many more freshwater reservoirs that move between borders as underground aquifers (water-bearing rock or soil).

Some expect many conflicts to arise in the future due to the necessity to share this most vital of resources. However, history has shown that co-operation and not conflict has been the common response to transboundary water management issues.

Over the last 60 years, over 200 international water agreements have been arrived at, while only 37 cases of violence between states have taken place as a result of water disputes.

UN Water organises the annual World Water Day on March 22 and chooses the theme each year. The resolution to declare March 22 as World Day for Water was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 22, 1992 and observing the day started in 1993.

The lead agencies for this year's event are UNESCO and UN Economic Commission for Europe.

New coating makes car scratches disappear

Scientists have developed a polyurethane coating that heals its own scratches when exposed to sunlight, offering the promise of scratch-free cars and other products, researchers said.

"We developed a polymeric material that is able to repair itself by exposure to the Sun," said Marek Urban of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, whose study appears in the journal Science.

"In essence, you create a scratch and that scratch will disappear upon exposure to the Sun," Urban said in an interview on the Science website. The self-healing coating uses chitosan, a substance found in the shells of crabs and shrimp.

This is incorporated into traditional polymer materials, such as those used in coatings on cars to protect paint. When a scratch damages the chemical structure, the chitosan responds to ultraviolet light by forming chemical chains that begin bonding with other materials in the substance, eventually smoothing the scratch.

The process can take less than an hour. Urban said the new coating uses readily available materials, offering an advantage over other self-repairing coatings, which he said were "fairly elaborate and economically unfeasible."

The team tested the compound's properties using a razor-blade-thin scratch. "We haven't done any of the tests to show how wide it can be," Urban said in a telephone interview.

He said the polymer can only repair itself in the same spot once, and would not work after repeated scratches.

- Reuters

Irrigation projects under way

There are many areas in Sri Lanka which face acute shortages of water. The lack of water for drinking and irrigation purposes have hampered the people of the Hambantota district for decades.

The Weheragala and Kekiri Obada irrigation projects, which are now under construction, would provide a permanent solution to these problems.

The Weheragala reservoir project has a capacity of 75 million cubic metres and is expected to develop 14,000 hectares of land. This project would also end the drinking water problem at Kataragama by annually providing the area with four million cubic metres of water. The reservoir project, which remained at the planning stage for several years, is estimated to cost Rs. 1,800 million.

The Kekiri Obada project comes under the purview of the Walasmulla DS area and would provide drinking water to the Tangalle Kirama and Walasmulla areas. It would also develop 151 hectares of paddy land in the area which would benefit 1,500 farmer families.

Electric fence around Wasgamuwa Park

The Wildlife Conservation Department plans to erect an electrified fence around the Wasgamuwa National Park to protect nearby villages from wild animals.

This 10 kilometre fence would benefit 40 villages on the border of Wilgamuwa, Laggala, Naula and Dambulla Divisional Secretariat areas. The project would be funded by the Sri Lanka Mahaweli Authority.