Gizmorama - January 4, 2016

Good Morning,

A new polymer has been developed and could mean big things in the process of water purification. I'll drink to that!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- New polymer could greatly improve water purification --*
ITHACA, N.Y. - Materials scientists at Cornell University have created a new polymer with tremendous water purification abilities.

The new polymer is a porous form of cyclodextrin, a cornstarch derivative used in air fresheners to trap odorous particles. When deployed in contaminated water, the material absorbs pollutants at rates up to 200 times more efficient than traditional water purification technologies.

Most water treatment technologies use activated carbons. These materials have larger surface areas for pollutants to bind to, but they don't attract contaminant particles as efficiently. The new porous form of cyclodextrin has more space to trap toxins than previous versions.

"What we did is make the first high-surface-area material made of cyclodextrin, combining some of the advantages of the activated carbon with the inherent advantages of the cyclodextrin," lead researcher Will Dichtel, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell, explained in a press release.

"When you combine the best features of those two materials, you get a material that's even better than either class," Dichtel said. "These materials will remove pollutants in seconds, as the water flows by, so there's a potential for really low-energy, flow-through water purification, which is a big deal."

Dichtel is a 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship winner. He says part of his $650,000 in award money -- spread out over five years -- will fund continued research into the water purification powers of cyclodextrin.

He and his colleagues are now working on integrating the material into a scalable water-treatment device, a machine that could be used to clean wastewater at an industrial scale.

The promise of cyclodextrin is detailed in a new paper, published this week in the journal Nature.

Another advantage of cyclodextrin is that it's recyclable. Activated carbon requires a high-intensity heat treatment to reactivate its water-cleaning properties. Cyclodextrin can be cleaned with methanol or ethanol at room temperature without a drop in performance.


*-- Leaks could spell the end for NASA's InSight mission --*
WASHINGTON - NASA's newest Mars lander won't launch in 2016. The space agency was forced to postpone the Insight mission indefinitely after leaks were discovered in one of the lander's instruments.

Engineers won't be able to fix the problem in time for the lander's scheduled March 2016 blast-off. A Mars-Earth alignment favorable to space travel happens just once every 26 months. That means InSight won't get another shot until 2018. And even then, it's not clear if the issue will be resolved.

"That's all forward work," John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, told reporters, referring to the future of the Insight mission. "We just haven't had time to work through that because our focus was on getting ready to launch."

The Insight lander is outfitted with instruments designed to the study Mars' innards, including an advanced super-sensitive seismometer and a heat-flow probe. Scientists hoped observations made by Insight would provide new clues as to how Mars first formed.

"This was going to be our first mission to explore the interior of Mars using the same techniques we used to explore the interior of Earth," said Grunsfeld.

But the lander's most importnat instrument, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, isn't ready to handle the frigid cold of life on Mars. Its designers have battled leaks for the last two years -- patch one, find another, patch that one, find another.

Recently, it became clear their fixes weren't going to be enough, as new leaks continued to be discovered.

Though some have suggested the mission and lander might have to be scrapped, scientists on the project don't believe that will be the case.

"I see this as a minor setback," principle investigator Bruce Banerdt told Gizmodo. "It's not a disaster, it's a minor hiccup on our path to getting this information on Mars and our place in the universe."

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