Along with the world leaders, reporters, activists, Greta Thunberg and academics, six University of Toronto undergraduates travelled to Madrid earlier this month to observe the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP25.
For the students, it was an opportunity to see international decision-making up close and learn how concepts they talk about in class, such as the UN sustainable development goals, come up in debate.
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University of Toronto researchers have developed a new strategy to remove tiny oil droplets from wastewater with more than 90 per cent efficiency in just 10 minutes. Their secret weapon?
A sponge.
“Oil extraction operations such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, produce nearly 100 billion barrels of oil-contaminated wastewater each year,” says Chul Park, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.
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A new study by two University of Toronto researchers is proposing a different way to think about tackling climate change – one that shifts focus away from emissions reductions in favour of eliminating fossil fuel energy altogether.
The research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
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It may help keep your car on the road in the winter, but research from the University of Toronto suggests that road salt is creating problems for wildlife.
Researchers from the lab of Shannon McCauley, an associate professor of biology at U of T Mississauga,investigated the impact of road salt exposure on larvae of Anax junius dragonflies. The results, published in the journal Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution, show that long-term exposure to high levels of salinity suppress the immune response of aquatic insects, negatively impacting their ability to fight infections and recover from injuries.
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Researchers at the University of Toronto are developing an early warning system for water quality and pollution that combines tiny water fleas and an instrument so sensitive it’s able to detect changes at the molecular level.
The technique being developed by Myrna Simpson, a professor inU of T Scarborough’s department of physical and environmental sciences, and post-doctoral researcherTae-Yong Jeong uses something called metabolomics to study the health of common water fleas (Daphnia). It uses a powerful instrument called a tandem mass spectrometer to offer a window into biochemical processes taking place inside Daphnia when they’re exposed to different water conditions.
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Researchers from the University of Toronto and the California Institute of Technology have designed a new system for efficiently converting CO2, water and renewable energy into ethylene – the precursor to a wide range of plastic products, from medical devices to synthetic fabrics – under neutral conditions. The device has the potential to offer a carbon-neutral pathway to a commonly used chemical while enhancing storage of waste carbon and excess renewable energy.
“CO2 has low economic value, which reduces the incentive to capture it before it enters the atmosphere,” says University Professor and project lead Ted Sargent of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “Converting it into ethylene, one of the most widely-used industrial chemicals in the world, transforms the economics.
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