“Greater exposure to interdisciplinarity—especially for science majors—is associated with increased earnings after college graduation.” This is one of the conclusions of an article on interdisciplinary education by Han et al in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published in 2023.
When you think about plastic pollution, you probably think of water bottles, single-use plates and cutlery, or food packaging. “Oh well, I don’t litter, so I’m not responsible” you might think. But in fact, you probably do contribute to plastic pollution: every time you wash your clothes. The escape of microplastics from laundry is a substantial problem. This is another guest blog post from an IMSE work experience student, Rolando Charles!
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about formulated products, how formulated products have climate impact, and what sorts of skills are needed to reformulate to make them more sustainable. In the coming weeks, I’m going to give some examples of how changing a product to adapt to or mitigate climate change also requires changing the formulation. This turns out to be a complex process. Here’s the first example: reformulating fertilizers and pesticides for drone delivery.
New podcast alert!
This month I’ve been talking to three researchers at Imperial College London about their work on formulations. Formulations are a class of modern products which are all complex mixtures of many different elements. The evidence is the ingredients list on the back of the packet. These kinds of advanced formulated chemical products are everywhere in modern life: we use them daily to stay healthy, warm, dry, fed, clean and connected.
The Science and Engineering in Cultural Heritage network of excellence (which IMSE supports) is hosting its first one-day conference on 20 September 2023, 9.30-17.30. This free conference is a forum for researchers, students and staff at Imperial College London and cultural heritage organisations in London to meet, explore current challenges, showcase tools/techniques, and build collaborations to solve problems.
New podcast alert!
This month I talked to two of the authors of the latest IMSE briefing paper about low carbon fuels for aviation. This was launched on 1 March 2023. I spoke to Andrea Fantuzzi and Nadine Moustafa about their experience writing the paper.
Most companies today have sustainability and net zero targets. They are becoming increasingly important to attract customers, employees and investment. What does this mean for companies that make formulations?
And I’m not talking about green food colouring, I’m talking about making formulations more sustainable.
Or vaccines, or paint, or glue, or perfume, or dishwasher tablets… What do all these products have in common? The answer is they’re all formulations: complex mixtures of substances which all contribute to how the final product works.
On 1 March 2023, IMSE launched its ninth briefing paper, on low carbon fuels for aviation. I have been working with a great team of postdocs and PhD students on this for the last year. It was exciting to hear what a professional audience thought of our work at last.