Concept

Plastic pollution

Related publications (30)

Scaling Description of Creep Flow in Amorphous Solids

Matthieu Wyart, Thomas Willem Jan de Geus, Marko Popovic, Wencheng Ji

Amorphous solids such as coffee foam, toothpaste, or mayonnaise display a transient creep flow when a stress E is suddenly imposed. The associated strain rate is commonly found to decay in time as gamma_ -t-nu, followed either by arrest or by a sudden flui ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2022

Assessing Analytical Methods for the Rapid Detection of Lead Adulteration in the Global Spice Market

Meret Aeppli

Lead adulteration of spices, primarily via Pb chromate compounds, has been documented globally as a growing public health concern. Currently, Pb detection in spices relies primarily on expensive and time-consuming laboratory analyses. Advancing rapid Pb de ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Sustainable polyesters via direct functionalization of lignocellulosic sugars

François Maréchal, Véronique Michaud, Yves Leterrier, Harm-Anton Klok, Jeremy Luterbacher, Adrien Julien Demongeot, Graham Reid Dick, Maxime Alexandre Clément Hedou

The development of sustainable plastics from abundant renewable feedstocks has been limited by the complexity and efficiency of their production, as well as their lack of competitive material properties. Here we demonstrate the direct transformation of the ...

2022

Temperature- and pressure-dependence of the hydrogen bond network in plastic ice VII

Livia Eleonora Bove Kado, Umbertoluca Ranieri, Maria Rescigno

We model, via classical molecular dynamics simulations, the plastic phase of ice VII across a wide range of the phase diagram of interest for planetary investigations. Although structural and dynamical properties of plastic ice VII are mostly independent o ...

AIP Publishing2022

Inferring the flow properties of epithelial tissues from their geometry

Matthieu Wyart, Marko Popovic

Amorphous materials exhibit complex material properties with strongly nonlinear behaviors. Below a yield stress they behave as plastic solids, while they start to yield above a critical stress sigma(c). A key quantity controlling plasticity which is, howev ...

2021

Detection and Quantification of Nonlabeled Polystyrene Nanoparticles Using a Fluorescent Molecular Rotor

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider

Plastic pollution has reached alarming levels in recent years. While macro- and microplastic pollution are attested and studied since the 1970s, much less is known about the associated nanoscopic fragments. Due to their ability to cross biological barriers ...

2021

Network design optimization of waste management systems: the case of plastics

François Maréchal

Failure in appropriately managing complex municipal solid waste systems in general and waste plastics in particular negatively affects public health and environment. A decision-making tool incorporating concepts of logistics and supply chain, considering d ...

Elsevier2021

Insights into the Horizontal and Vertical Profiles of Microplastics in a River Emptying into the Sea Affected by Intensive Anthropogenic Activities in Northern China

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider

Studies focused only on surface water may underestimate microplastic abundance in aquatic environments. This was the first survey to investigate the vertical (surface, intermediate, and bottom waters) distribution and composition of microplastics (MPs) in ...

2021

Towards a sustainable supply chain on plastic waste management : a multi-criteria optimization approach

François Maréchal, Ivan Daniel Kantor, Rafael Amorim Leandro De Castro Amoedo

Municipal solid waste and waste plastics are currently perceived as an environmental threat. Thermovalorization and recycling are the primary technologies used for disposal, with re- searchers and practitioners advocating for one or the other, but far from ...

2021

Nature-inspired Circular-economy Recycling (NaCRe) for Proteins

Simone Giaveri

Since a few decades our planet has been loaded with billion tons of synthetic polymer-based materials, commonly named plastics. The large scale of plastic production, associated with its limited recyclability, are the driving force for the accumulation of ...

EPFL2021