Repurposing the single-used-plastic for development of hydrophobic aerogels for remediation of oil spill and organic solvents.

Currently, around 400 million tonnes of synthetic polymers are being dumped as waste annually and by this rate by 2050 the ocean would contain more such waste compared to the total weight of fish. As recycling could solve part of this problem, recently such waste is being reused for various purposes like composite preparation, oil production and various other use such as production of foams, sponges, and aerogels. However, there is a relatively limited literature available on the utilization of polyethylene polymer (like LDPE). The study presented in this article indicated that LDPE-based polymers could be reused (after modification) for preparation of hydrophobic, lightweight, and porous aerogels that have oil-spills and organic solvent adsorption capacity. The aerogels showed contact angle of 121.9o, bulk density below 0.25 g/cm3, and were found to be semi-crystalline. The aerogels showed oil and solvent adsorption more than that for their untreated counterparts. Also, the aerogels were found to be recycled for more than five cycles with very minimum loss of efficacy. This area of producing oil sorbents from single used plastic wastes is still very open for further research and seems to be a promising route for both waste reduction, and the synthesis of value-added products. This could be one of the most sustainable approaches for efficient single-used plastic wase management and environment clean-up.

Epigrammatic study on the effect of lockdown amid Covid-19 pandemic on air quality of most polluted cities of Rajasthan (India).

Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected all the aspects of life in adverse manner; however, a significant improvement has been observed in the air quality, due to restricted human activities amidst lockdown. Present study reports a comparison of air quality between the lockdown duration and before the lockdown duration in seven selected cities (Ajmer, Alwar, Bhiwadi, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, and Udaipur) of Rajasthan (India). The period of analysis is 10 March 2020 to 20 March 2020 (before lockdown period) versus 25 March to 17 May 2020 (during lockdown period divided into three phases). In order to understand the variations in the level of pollutant accumulation amid the lockdown period, a trend analysis is performed for 24 h daily average data for five pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, and ozone). Fig. aGraphical abstract.