Category Archives: Chemistry

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed on Tuesday that the substance used to poison the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had similar structural characteristics to the Novichok family of highly potent nerve agents.

The finding from the worlds leading chemical weapons body adds additional weight to the conclusions of laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, and increases the likelihood that Russia, which has been accused of using a similar poison in at least one previous assassination attempt, will be punished, likely with targeted financial sanctions.

These results constitute a matter of grave concern, the organization said in a statement. The use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances, it said, is reprehensible and wholly contrary to the legal norms established by the international community.

Mr. Navalny, the most prominent figure in Russias political opposition, fell ill on a flight from Siberia on Aug. 20 and slipped into a coma. The Russian authorities initially prevented his family from transporting him abroad for treatment, but he was eventually brought to Berlin, where he was treated at the Charit hospital. He was discharged on Sept. 23 and has vowed to return to Russia to continue his work after a period of rehabilitation in Germany.

The German authorities said they never doubted the conclusions of military scientists in Germany, who had reported discovering traces of Novichok in biological samples taken from Mr. Navalny, as well as on a plastic water bottle from his hotel that was smuggled out of Russia by his aides.

But the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons add an authoritative and independent assessment that the Germans could use as ammunition in the pursuit of punishment, most likely in the form of financial sanctions against Russian officials.

By doing so, Germany would be following a playbook used in 2018, when the British government relied on the chemical weapons body to bolster its conclusions that Russian operatives had used a Novichok poison in an attempt to murder Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who had spied for Britain. In that case, the organizations findings helped assure Britains allies and justify a mass expulsion of Russian officials in the weeks after the poisoning.

Steffen Seibert, the spokesman for the German government, said in a statement Tuesday that in the coming days the countries of the European Union together with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons would discuss next steps.

The German government renews its call on Russia to explain what has happened, Mr. Seibert said. Any use of chemical weapons is a serious process and cannot be without consequences.

Separately, forty-four signatories of the Chemical Weapons Convention, including the United States, Britain and every country of the European Union issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling on Russia to investigate the poisoning and cooperate with technical experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon in the Russian Federation on 20 August, the statement said.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its efforts to whittle away the worlds stocks of chemical weapons, but its record as the worlds watchdog for such weapons has become clouded in recent years.

In 2017, an official from the organization traveled to Moscow to certify that Russia had fulfilled its obligations as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroyed its remaining declared stocks of chemical weapons.

Less than six months later, a pair of Russian operatives traveled to Britain, armed with a Novichok-class chemical weapon that had apparently been produced secretly, under the noses of weapons inspectors, according to the British government. The operatives used it to poison Mr. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, in southern England. Three other people in Salisbury were also poisoned, and one of them, Dawn Sturgess, died.

Two years after that, it was used on Mr. Navalny.

Russian officials have denied involvement in both attacks. On Sept. 15, the head of Russias foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, gave a rare news conference in which he said that all stocks of Novichok had been destroyed in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.

To say that on the territory of Russia there is production or stocks of military-grade poisons is of course disinformation, Mr. Naryshkin said.

Western intelligence services say otherwise, though Mr. Naryshkins comment, even if inaccurate, was revealing a rare acknowledgment that Russia had, at least at one time, possessed stocks of Novichok. The nerve agent was developed in the Soviet Union and Russia in the 1980s and 90s and was so highly classified that before the Skripal attack it was not even listed as a banned substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Before Mr. Naryshkins comment, Russian officials had denied that the Novichok program existed, though some of the Russian scientists involved in it had spoken about it publicly.

Despite Russian denials, a small group of Western countries have known about the Kremlins Novichok program for decades, including where the substance is produced and stored, said Andrew Weber, a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks.

Western officials pressed their Russian counterparts on several occasions to cease production of the weapons, though for years the West resisted including the Novichok class on the Chemical Weapons Convention list of banned substances, Mr. Weber said.

The weapons were considered so dangerous that publicly acknowledging them was judged a proliferation risk, said Mr. Weber, who was an assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs during the Obama administration.

Russia never possessed large stockpiles of Novichok, but was able to produce small amounts on demand, he said. Even low quantities, he added, would be sufficient to kill thousands of people.

It was only after the Salisbury poisonings that Western officials accused the Russians publicly and successfully pushed to have three forms of Novichok nerve agent added to the list of banned substances, though not all of them.

The nerve agent used on Mr. Navalny, according to the German authorities, is a novel form of Novichok that until now was unknown to Western experts.

In an interview posted Monday on a popular Russian YouTube channel, Mr. Navalny struggled to explain what it felt like to be poisoned with Novichok, saying it was like nothing he had ever experienced.

Normally when youre not feeling well, you can assess yourself and figure out whats happening my heart hurts, my stomach hurts, my leg hurts, or Ive got a cold, he told the interviewer, Yuri Dud. But in this case you cant understand it.

He said it was something like being kissed by a dementor, the ghoulish soul-sucking monsters from the Harry Potter series.

It doesnt hurt, he said, but life escapes you.

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Nerve Agent Was Used to Poison Navalny, Chemical Weapons Body Confirms - The New York Times

Syria continues to obtain components for its chemical weapons and missile programs, the Trump administration said in a report to Congress this year, as Bashar al-Assads regime seeks to restore capabilities eroded by a near-decade-long civil war and successive U.S. airstrikes.

The findingconfirmed to Foreign Policy by current and former U.S. officials, as well as diplomatic sources who spoke on condition of anonymitycomes as current and former Trump administration officials worry that a potential buildup of missile production facilities inside Syria could threaten Israel.

Despite having completed destruction of Syrias declared [chemical weapons] production facilities and stockpile of [chemical weapons] agent, the Assad regime continues to pursue chemical weapons and has used both chlorine and sarin on a number of occasions over the course of the conflict, the State Department reported to Congress this year in a document obtained by Foreign Policy. We believe the Assad regime is seeking to reestablish strategic weapons production capabilities it lost in the course of the conflict and we continue to see Syrian procurement activity in support of its chemical weapons and missile programs.

In a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, accused Syria of breaching its obligation under the Chemical Weapons Convention and U.N. resolutions to dismantle its chemical weapons program. The United States attributes more than 50 instances of chemical weapons use to the Assad regime, mostly launched from aircraft and targeting civilians in residential neighborhoods, markets, and hospitals. Many of the chemical weapons stockpiled by the regime in the face of international arms control treaties are capable of being launched by Syrias ballistic missiles.

Its not clear to U.S. officials that Iran would consider transferring ballistic missiles directly to Assad, a move that would significantly extend the range of Damascuss deadly sarin and chlorine stockpiles. But the Syrian regimes continued efforts to secure chemical weapons have raised concerns in Washington and Jerusalem.

Collaboration between Iranian proxies and Damascus in weapons production is not unheard of. In the past, the Syrian regime developed an improvised rocket munition to fire chemical weapons based on designs from Hezbollah, and Janes Defence Weekly has reported on Iran previously aiding in the growth of Syrias surface-to-surface missile program.

In the report to Congress obtained by Foreign Policy, the State Department warned that Iran was also exploiting the Syrian war to build up a coterie of multinational militia forces along border crossing routes and to fly armed drones into nearby Israel. One former Trump administration official said the United States has greenlit Israeli airstrikes inside Syria targeting Iranian efforts to house missile facilities near its border, considered a red line for Israel. Concerns about Iranian missile sites have only grown, officials and diplomatic sources said, as Iran has stepped up efforts to produce precision guidance kits on Syrian soil that can increase the accuracy of short-range missiles fired at Israel.

In the meantime, Assads continued effort to rebuild Syrias chemical weapons production appears significant not only for the human rights implications but also for the threats it would pose to U.S. allies and partners.

The reemergence of Assads offensive chemical weapons program, that would be significant, said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. Its one thing to have barrel bombs dropped from helicopters. Its another thing entirely to have sarin available for deploying on ballistic missiles that can hit other countries in the region. Those are two very different threats.

Kimball said it would be difficult for nongovernmental organizations to independently confirm whether Assad was taking steps to rebuild his chemical weapons program. Still, it would not be surprising if the U.S. intelligence community assessed that the Assad regime was trying to reconstitute some of its previous programs, he said. If it does have evidence, it has a responsibility to bring this evidence to the [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW] so it can bring the full weight of the organization and international community to bear on Syria.

The resilience of Assads chemical weapons program appears to fly in the face of optimism from U.S. civilian and military officials after successive U.S.-led missile strikes against air bases and facilities in 2017 and 2018. Then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie did not rule out the possibility of future chemical weapons attacks by the regime in 2018, though he said the multinational attack that included Britain and France had dealt a very serious blow to the heart of Assads program. But former officials said the Trump administration had to balance its desire to strike a blow against the Syrian regime with concerns about collateral damage on a crowded battlefield.

We definitely wanted to do something actual to their capability that wasnt just symbolic, but we also didnt want to kill a bunch of Russians, said a former senior Trump administration official. It would have depleted their general ability, but we didnt want to hit a bunch of places that had Iranian and Russian advisors there.

But even before the strikes, Western intelligence agencies and international weapons inspectors long suspected that Assad hid some stores of chemical weapons after declaring he had eliminated the entire program as part of a pact brokered by the United States and Russia in 2013. Those concerns have been repeatedly reinforced by persistent reports that Syrian forces continue to fire munitions filled with sarin and chlorine at civilian towns in rebel-controlled territory.

As far back as 2016, international chemical weapons experts at the Hague-based OPCW described a troubling pattern of incomplete and inaccurate disclosures about the scale of Syrias ongoing chemical weapons program, according to a confidential 2016 report that was reviewed by Foreign Policy.

We, therefore, remain very concerned that [chemical weapons] agent and associated munitions, subject to declaration and destruction, have been illicitly retained by Syria, said Washingtons then-envoy to the OPCW, Kenneth Ward, at the time.

There have been indications that Syria has sought to reconstitute its chemical weapons program. The United States has been sanctioning front companies working for the Syrian chemical weapons program since 2013 and 2014that would indicate ongoing attempts at procurement, said Gregory Koblentz, a professor at George Mason University.

For instance, France issued a statement in April 2017 claiming that Syrians were trying to acquire stores of isopropanol, a chemical precursor used in the production of sarin. The OPCW also said it had found major inconsistencies in Syrian regime explanations for the discovery of traces of sarin in sites that hadnt been declared to inspectors as weapons facilities.

This year, a U.N. panel of experts monitoring North Koreas compliance with U.N. sanctions found that Pyongyang had been routinely shipping potentially critical supplies to a Syrian entitythe Scientific Studies and Research Centerthat oversaw Syrias chemical weapons program.

Koblentz said the administrations reference to a strategic program suggested that Syria may be seeking to expand its chemical weapons threat to deter attacks by regional rivals, particularly Israel. While some U.S. officials believe that the Trump administrations steady diet of sanctions against Assad has dampened his wherewithal to cause trouble in the region, experts insist that the regime will still look to double down on its chemical weapons arsenal.

The first thing you always have to say is that the disarmament was incomplete and not just in terms of volumes of agents but what production capacities may have survived, said Tobias Schneider, a research fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin who has conducted several studies of the Assad regimes chemical weapons program.

It was the consensus that the program had survived and it was being consolidated on a smaller scale but that it quietly continued, he said.

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Syria Is Still Trying to Use Chemical Weapons - Foreign Policy

Democratic House candidate Nancy Goroff in the lab.Photo: Goroff for Congress

That I believe in science and I believe in using facts and evidence to solve problems are rallying cries for a political campaign says a lot about 2020. Yet thats the pitch of Nancy Goroff, a chemist at Stony Brook University who is the Democratic nominee taking on Rep. Lee Zeldin in a Long Island district.

That appeal to science-based decision-making speaks to the hellscape of modern America that Republicans have created. The Trump administration is the culmination of those efforts, having spent nearly four years sidelining science to disastrous consequences. That includes the acute crisis of a pandemic that has left the U.S. with the highest death toll in the world and one of the highest per capita death rates of any developing country. Hell, the president came down with it after holding a superspreader event. Then theres the long-simmering deregulatory campaign to fry the climate, exemplified in this weeks vice presidential debate when Mike Pence blithely lying that the Trump administration will continue to listen to the science despite all evidence to the contrary.

From denying the threat of climate change to politicizing basic public health measures, the GOP is establishing itself as not only the party untethered to facts but a danger to the health and safety of Americans, Shaughnessy Naughton, the president of 314 Action, a PAC backing Goroff and other scientists running for office, said in an emailed statement.

While the presidential race will be the biggest referendum on the role of science in policy, the down-ballot races will each be a microcosm of that fight. And the race between Goroff and Zeldin to represent New Yorks First Congressional District shines a particularly bright light on the stark differences between the parties. Goroff has been active at the science and policy nexus, serving on the advisory board of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a watchdog for science abuses in policymaking thats been particularly busy in the Trump era. Zeldin has helped create the environment for those abuses.

I decided that this is a moment in history where I need to really step forward and put my full effort into this, Goroff said on a video call. It wasnt enough just to support candidates I cared about and support issues I cared about. I just needed to work full time on it.

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While Goroff hasnt endorsed the Green New Deal, her platform aligns pretty good with, well, science. If she wins, it points to what could be real areas of debate in a House Democratic caucus that includes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a growing number of progressives. But honestly, itd be a welcome change compared to what Zeldin and the Republican party have put forward.

Goroff left her position at Stony Brook, where her lab is focused on organic chemistry, to compete in the Democratic primary. She won that tightly contested contest, which included real estate investor who took on Zeldin in 2018 and lost. Now, Goroff will face the congressman who has held the seat since 2014.

The district flipped from Obama to Trump in 2016, and Zeldin carried it by 16.4% that year, a margin larger than Trumps victory in the county. In 2018, the gap narrowed considerably, with Zeldin winning by 4.1% in what was a blue wave that saw the House flip to Democrats. Now, Goroff is fighting to flip whats considered a lean Republican seat by the Cook Political Report, giving Democrats an even larger majority in the House. Shes garnered the endorsement of former President Barack Obama, which could help her cause.

Zeldin has opened that door for her simple pitch to trust the science to be effective. He jumped on the hydroxychloroquine-as-coronavirus-cure bandwagon in July, weeks after the FDA pulled its emergency use authorization and the World Health Organization ended its trial usage because it hadnt proven to be effective. And despite being a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan groups of representatives thats done about bupkis to advance climate legislation, he has a lifetime score of 13% from the League of Conservation Voters. Among his greatest hits are voting against a carbon tax, the barest minimum of climate solutions, and for an amendment to block the government from considering the impacts of climate change in agency rulemaking.

Its not just the contrast with Zeldin that could make Goroffs message of science-based leadership appealing on Long Island. The district is also home to Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook, two major scientific institutions, and is ground zero for climate change with miles of coastline still bearing the scars of Hurricane Sandy. The district needs real climate solutions to deal with rising seas, and the research institutions there could very well play a role in delivering at least some of them. Groups supporting science-based decision-making have lined up with Goroff, including 314 Action, a PAC that works to get scientists elected. The group has put more than $2 million into running TV and digital ads supporting Goroff and has made climate change a central part of its pitch for why Congress needs her.

I really see my role as a scientist in Congress, that what I would want to be is a resource for every member of Congress to make sure that Democrats and Republicans have access to the best information available, she said.

In comparison to Zeldin, Goroff has called for the U.S. to reach carbon neutrality by 2035, a target more aggressive than that of former Vice President Joe Biden. She also said shes supportive of market mechanisms to lower carbon emissions, such as cap-and-trade programs that allow companies to sell and buy a shrinking number of pollution permits as a way to reduce emissions.

I do think we need to put in some kinds of incentives to let the markets do their magic when people have financial incentives to move quickly, she said, noting vehicles as one area where incentivizing the development of electric vehicles over gas guzzlers could be a good place to start.

Yet market-based approaches to climate change have increasingly fallen out of favor with the progressive wing of the Democratic party. The Green New Deal, for example, makes no mention of it, and presidential climate plans largely set aside any calls for a carbon market of some sort. That Goroff supports it shows a potential area where the Democratic caucus could tussle over climate policy in a new Congress. But honestly, if Democrats take the White House, Senate, and the House, having a substantive debate over the role of markets in the adoption of electric vehicles would be a breath of fresh air after the decades of Republican pollution.

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A Chemist Running on I Believe in Science Wants to Take Down a Trump-Loving Republican on Long Island - Gizmodo

Electronics have become imbedded into products in almost every area of life. Along with this expansion, numerous industries, from automotive to medical device, have a growing need for robust and efficient methods to assess quality [1]. The many components used in end products are all subject to safety regulations and regularly have to undergo quality control analyses. Researchers, engineers, and technicians need to be able to determine the visual quality and chemical composition of the components quickly, accurately, and cost-effectively.In electronics, components like soldering materials often need to be analyzed to show that they comply with non-toxicity regulations (e.g., the absence of lead) and to address any quality claims that may emerge [2]. The method of analysis generally involves two discrete stepsvisual inspection via an optical microscope to observe microstructure and chemical analysis via energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS or EDX) on a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to determine the materials composition [2]. The process involves considerable skill and preparation time, not to mention processing time and cost.

The growing, legitimate concern among industry professionals is that this technology is too slow, ultimately not cost-effective, and that manufacturers may be ignoring other more recent, faster, and potentially better solutions.

One of these solutions, which has been shown to save significant amounts of time, money, and effort, is to combine the two key elements into a single system - in other words, a microscope that can simultaneously analyze chemical composition. Using this two-in-one system, researchers, engineers, and technicians can focus in on the material structure of interest through the microscope and simultaneously trigger the composition analysis with a single click.

The key to this second step is laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) in which a high energetic laser pulse ablates a small piece of the sample and generates a plasma plume [3-5]. When the plasma cools down, it emits a light of characteristic wavelength. The spectrum is the chemical fingerprint of what you see in the microscope image and the chemical composition can be identified.

Compared to typical downstream analysis with electron microscopy, this solution can save upwards of 90% of the time that it takes to complete the two steps separately. Part of this time savings is because far less sample preparation is needed downstream, relative to other methods, an advantage that made LIBS the system of choice on the NASA Mars rover Curiosity [6]. Quality control analysis can take just a few minutes compared to a few hours for SEM-EDS.

Optical microscope images, displayed in 2D (top) and 3D (bottom), of salt contamination on an aluminum/silicon (Al/Si) surface. Credit: Gerweck GmbH, Germany.

LIBS spectrum taken of salt on the Al/Si surface (red) shown in comparison to a reference spectrum for pure Al (green). Credit: Gerweck GmbH, Germany.

A German company, that provides surface processing and plating of electronic components with various materials, including gold, silver, copper, and nickel, offers a great example of an organization that is seeing the benefits of switching to LIBS. It regularly receives requests for proof of quality claims from customers which precipitates root-cause analysis (comparison between raw material and returned parts). Common root-cause issues are contamination or surface defects (e.g., via salts or lubricant residues) of the raw material or process contamination. For failure analysis, after optical inspection, the company needs to identify the materials in a spot on the scale of m. For automotive customers, an 8D report is expected within 10 days, including root-cause analysis and countermeasures.

The company had previously sent samples out to an external laboratory for advanced SEM-EDS, which leads to extra cost and processing time, with additional lab runs required on occasion. The company wanted to switch to a process that did not require advanced user training, sample preparation, nor external processing, and which saved time and money overall. The aim was to be able to carry out optical examinations, evaluation of surface topographies, and qualitative analyses with little effort.

The company began utilizing the two-in-one microscope and LIBS system and achieved significantly faster results turnaround time became less than a day which freed up time for additional investigations and allowed 8D deadlines to be easily met. The other benefit was reduced analysis cost. Savings were also seen in reduced quality-related issues and by the identification of possible root causes of defects upfront in production. The results are used as strong evidence, showing a decrease in the number of claims.

Materials inspection is important in areas beyond quality control its needed in research and development (R&D), technical cleanliness, and failure analysis (FA) across multiple industries and fields, including transportation, automotive, aerospace, metal alloys, semiconductors, ceramics, electronics, medical devices, earth science, forensics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, with each area having its own subsets of uses. For instance, in technical cleanliness, particle analysis is essential for automotive parts and components, fuels and lubricants, electronic components, as well as chemical and pharmaceutical products [1,2,7-9]. These areas could all benefit from a more streamlined, efficient materials inspection system offering both visual and chemical analysis.

At a time when the manufacturing sector is under huge economic and production pressure from the COVID-19 crisis, efficiencies like these, and the associated cost savings, could go a long way in helping manufacturers not only survive, but also thrive. Researchers, engineers, and technicians shouldnt be wary of embracing new technology simply because this is what weve always done. The pandemic has provided a powerful push to embrace new technology that is faster, simpler, and smarter.

References1) M. Oravec, A. Divokov, P. Lipovsk, M. Karsek, R. Janok, Technical Cleanliness a Requirement of Precision Manufacturing, Acta Mechanica Slovaca (2019) vol. 23, iss. 4, pp. 46 - 51, DOI: 10.21496/ams.2020.008

2) Technical Cleanliness in Electrical Engineering: Dirt is simply matter in the wrong place, 2nd edition, Guideline (2018) ZVEI. https://www.zvei.org/en/press-media/publications/guideline-technical-cleanliness-in-electrical-engineering3) D.A. Creamers, L.J. Radziemski, Handbook of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., New York, 2006). DOI:10.1002/97811185673714) T. Kim, C-T. Lin, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, Chapter 5 in Advanced Aspects of Spectroscopy, M.A. Farrukh, Editor, IntechOpen (2012) DOI: 10.5772/482815) R. Kohli, Methods for Monitoring and Measuring Cleanliness of Surfaces, Ch. 3, Developments in Surface Contamination and Cleaning, Volume 4: Detection, Characterization, and Analysis of Contaminants, Eds. R. Kohli & K.L. Mittal (Elsevier, 2012) pp. 154-155, DOI: 10.1016/C2009-0-64375-06) All About the Laser (and Microphone) Atop Mars 2020, NASA's Next Rover, News, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology/NASA, February 7, 2020. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=75917) VDA (German Association of the Automotive Industry), QMC (Quality Management Center), Volume 19, Part 1, Inspection of Technical Cleanliness, Particulate Contamination of Functionally Relevant Automotive Components, 2nd Revised Edition, March 2015. https://webshop.vda.de/qmc/de/volume-1918) VDA (German Association of the Automotive Industry), QMC (Quality Management Center), Volume 19, Part 2, Technical cleanliness in assembly, Environment, Logistics, Personnel and Assembly Equipment, 1st edition 2010. https://webshop.vda.de/qmc/de/volume-1929) ISO/DIS 16232 Road Vehicles, Cleanliness of components and systems, International Organization for Standardization. https://www.iso.org/standard/70267.html

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Simplifying Quality Control in Production and Manufacturing - Combining Microscopy and Chemical Analysis - Technology Networks

Learn from doing things in real life. Thats the idea behind several hot trends in education for younger children: think outdoor school, forest school and other project-based learning programs.

But can these sorts of ideas help dust off high school chemistry?

Two Washington University in St. Louis educators believe that high school students will learn chemistry better when they crunch actual climate data, rather than memorize the periodic table by rote. And several California school districts agree rolling out the Washington University educators new high school chemistry curriculum this fall, even as they are adapting to different methods of teaching online or as hybrid programs.

The new curriculum is co-authored by Michael E. Wysession, a professor in earth and planetary sciences, and Bryn Lutes, a lecturer in chemistry, both in Arts & Sciences, along with colleague Chris Moore, a professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

That was the intention of our program all along that it could be used entirely in a digital form if needed, Wysession said. California is adopting it widely. Most of Los Angeles, most of San Bernardino the big school districts are now going to be using this program.

Importantly, this is the first time in the United States when a large amount of rigorous, quantitative, science-based climate science and climate change science will be presented to all students, he said.

Experience Chemistry, the new curriculum published by Savvas Learning Company (formerly Pearson K-12), is the first high school chemistry program to fully include the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by 45 of 50 states, Wysession noted. These standards break down some of the barriers that once siloed physics and chemistry subject matter as if it only existed in the laboratory.

Instead, the new science content is presented through storylines focused on engaging and relevant real-world phenomena from Earth and space sciences.

For example, acids and bases are learned through the phenomena of dying coral reefs and ocean acidification.

The new chemistry program focuses on the scientific practices and activities that students experience labs, activities and data analysis and not on content that they memorize. Students who actively learn this way not only become more engaged in the topics, but find science more fun, research shows.

Eager to feature actual climate data and not hypothetical examples Wysession leaned on current and former collaborators from his 30-plus years of research and teaching to obtain permissions to republish and use real datasets for the new curriculum.

We even got permission to use many figures directly from the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said. He conferred with many climate scientists, including Washington Universitys Bronwen Konecky, in developing more than 150 pages of rigorous climate-related content for Experience Chemistry.

Wysession is optimistic that the new curriculum will continue to be adopted more widely. Ultimately, many of its themes may be picked up and shared by other textbook providers as well. California school districts are often seen as leaders in shaping much of the high school educational program nationwide.

A great number and eventually maybe even a majority! of American students will learn in high school about the science of climate change and the role that humans play in it, Wysession said. Eventually this will change the understanding of climate science by the voting public.

The students have told us that they are ready. The international protests led by high school and even middle school students about climate change have shown us that they want to talk about this, Wysession said. They get it, and they are engaged.

We would be doing them a disservice on multiple levels if we didnt talk about human impacts, he said. They dont want to just hear the rhetoric about it, they want to know the science. This generation of students is far better prepared to talk about and address the issues of climate change than any before it.

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Updating high school chemistry with a focus on climate, real-world examples | The Source - Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. said it has successfully completed its first commercial-scale production of polyethylene using chemical recyclingand plans to produce 1 billion pounds of the material annually by 2030.

The Woodlands, Texas-based firm made the announcement Oct. 8and said the recycled material matches the performance and safety specifications of its virgin PE.

CPChem spokesman Ryan Draper said the company has a target to produce a total of 1 billion pounds of the recycled PE annually by 2030. He declined to disclose current production but said it was made in the company's Cedar Bayou facility in Baytown, Texas, where it makes virgin PE and other chemicals.

"We are exceptionally proud to be the first company to announce production of a circular polyethylene on this scale in the U.S.," Jim Becker, vice president of polymers and sustainability, saidin the statement. "The successful production run marks a huge step for CPChem on our path to being a world leader in producing circular polymers."

"This development is an important milestone for us as we further our commitment to proactively help the world find sustainable solutions, including the elimination of plastic waste in the environment," he said.

The company said it was a two-year development process, and it is now working on scaling up production.

It also said it is working with suppliers of pyrolysis oil from waste plastic as a feedstock and is seeking to have the material certified by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus program. It plans to market it under the trade name Marlex Anew Circular Polyethylene.

"This advanced recycling technology allows us to recover hydrocarbons from plastic waste that have previously been difficult, or even impossible to recycle, enabling us to upgrade them into clean, safe circular plastics," said Ron Abbott, CPChem's sustainability technical manager.

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CPChem touts PE chemical recycling success, targets billion pounds of production by 2030 - Plastics News