Engineering - Chemical

As climate change challenges continue to crop up around fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, identifying renewable fuel materials and developing processes that produce environmentally friendly, cost-competitive biofuels are becoming increasingly important. 

MSU scientists are at the forefront of biofuels research and have made Michigan a leader in producing biofuels from cellulose and hemicellulose, the complex sugars that make grasses, plant stems and stalks, and leaves rigid.

Read more: Fermenting Fodder into Fuel

Engineering - Chemical

Electronics, disposables could be inventoried, sold for cash or credits

Envision a distasteful trip to the curb to take out the trash as a pleasant—and profitable—stroll.

Some juiceless batteries - those are good for a few cents. An old keyboard might fetch a couple of bucks. Even that empty box of Pop-Tarts might be worth something.

No need to sort these discards: the trashcan has already done it, inventorying all contents and calculating the worth of this waste. Next month’s garbage bill could be accompanied by a check.

Read more: Smart Trash Concept Could Reinvent Recycling with a Cash Incentive

Engineering - Chemical

Revolutionary purification techniques address impending global water crisis

A worldwide water crisis is imminent and will severely stress much of the world by 2025 unless new purification techniques can adequately and economically treat all sources of water. That's the prognosis of water-treatment expert Mark Shannon, director of the Center of Advanced Materials for Purification of Water with Systems at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Current processes to purify water require a lot of chemicals and a lot of energy, making treatment too costly or unavailable for much of the developed and developing world," Shannon said. "The difficulties in treating water are only expected to worsen as resources become more constrained."

Read more: Clean Water for a Crowded, Contaminated World