#Sulfuric acid industry

[mordormr]

The Backbone of Industry: Sulfuric Acid Market Stands Strong

Sulfuric acid, often called the "workhorse" of the chemical industry, plays a vital role in countless processes. Mordor Intelligence predicts the global sulfuric acid market will reach a staggering 387.24 million tons by 2029, growing at a steady CAGR of 3.82%. Let's delve into the factors keeping this foundational market robust:

Essential for Diverse Applications:

Fertilizer Production: Sulfuric acid is a primary component in the production of phosphate fertilizers, crucial for agriculture.

Chemical Processing: It finds use in various chemical reactions, creating a wide range of industrial products.

Metal Refining: Sulfuric acid plays a critical role in the refining of metals like copper and zinc.

Rising Demand from Developing Economies:

Industrial Growth: As developing economies experience rapid industrialization, the demand for sulfuric acid is expected to soar.

Infrastructure Development: Increased infrastructure projects require sulfuric acid for battery production and other applications.

Sustainability Concerns and Innovation:

While vital, sustainability is a growing concern. The market is witnessing advancements in:

Improved Recycling Processes: Recycling existing sulfuric acid reduces environmental impact and resource depletion.

Energy-Efficient Production Techniques: Advancements minimize energy consumption during production.

The Future of Sulfuric Acid:

The market's growth will likely be driven by:

Technological Advancements: New applications and production methods are expected to emerge.

Focus on Circular Economy: Emphasis on resource recovery and minimizing waste will be crucial.

[coldpenguintaco]

Sulfuric Acid Industry Ecosystem, Growth, Size, Opportunities, Top Manufacturers, Share, Market Analysis, Trends, Segmentations, Regional Graph and Forecast

Sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive mineral acid with the chemical formula H2SO4. It’s a colorless, odorless liquid with a viscous consistency. Sulfuric acid is widely used in various industries, including fertilizer production, chemical synthesis, metal processing, and wastewater treatment. Its primary applications include pH regulation, chemical manufacturing, and as a drying agent. The report…

[sirenjose]

Facts and Theories related to Fool's Gold and Norton

Part 1: Facts and Theories about Pyrite aka Fool's Gold

TLDR - Facts:

comes from the Greek word for fire

the dangers of pyrite oxidation (sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide)

pyrite can contain small amounts of real gold, called “invisible gold”

TLDR - Theories

Pyrite containing real gold parallel to Norton being good deep down

Fire connection to Infernal Sin

Pollution in Lakeside water and soil as well as cause of fish and plants dying because of Golden Cave?

Part 2: Facts and Theories about how Norton escaped Golden Cave

TLDR:

Norton didn't just simply dig himself out

Facts about mines, mine collapses, dangers, potential escape routes, etc...

Part 1

Facts

Pyrite (aka fool’s gold) comes from the Greek word ‘pyros’ meaning ‘fire’, and will create sparks when struck against metal or a hard surface.

It is capable of scratching glass while most knives won’t be able to scratch it.

In the presence of moisture and oxygen, pyrite oxidizes, releasing its sulfur content as sulfuric acid.

Pyrite rich waste from mining operations can increase acidity of surface water. This can harm downstream ecosystems, animals, and even pose a risk to humans.

Sulfur dioxide is produced by burning the pyrite in coal, which can combine with moisture in the atmosphere to create acid rain.

Pyrite oxidation is sufficiently exothermic enough to produce heat, and as the temperature rises, the coal heats up and in some cases cause it to self-ignite and cause fire. This is called spontaneous combustion, a very real problem in coal mines. Pyrite dust can burn even with only a little oxygen, and it burns well due to its sulfur content. Sulfide fires can burn for years.

Despite its reputation, pyrite can sometimes contain small amounts of real gold, although it is notoriously hard to extract. This gold is sometimes referred to as “invisible gold” because it isn’t observable by the naked eye or standard microscopes (you need sophisticated scientific instruments). It can come in different forms: either as particles of gold, an alloy where the pyrite and gold are finely mixed, and in defects (imperfections created when the pyrite crystals are forming) in the crystal structure . With the latter form, the more deformed it is, the more gold there is in the defects.

And the discovery of new gold deposits declining world wide, with the quality of ore degrading in parallel to the value of precious metal increasing.

Invisible gold is primarily found in pyrite and arsenopyrite, and this is now a common resource for the gold mining industry.

Theories

I really wanted to bring up pyrite having some real gold (even if the amounts are very small). Especially as I can draw a parallel with that to Norton, who may normally seem suspicious, but he isn’t entirely bad. He may seem unapproachable, but you may make progress if you dig deep enough and try hard enough. He isn’t completely “worthless”.

Pyrite coming from the word for  fire connects well to Infernal Sin, while pyrite being a fire starter in the fast due to its ability to create sparks fits well with Norton’s how we see Norton causing the explosion in Golden Cave in his trailer.

Then regarding the sulfuric acid, this actually made me wonder if the contamination in Lakeside, revealed in Yidhra’s letters, could be related to or from Golden Cave.

Ground water is water that seeps into the ground via rain or snow melt. As it makes its way underground, it can collect or react to the minerals and rocks down there, including pyrite, which can eventually result in the oxidation (and all its problems) I described earlier. This can percolate to form sediment at the bottom of rivers with mine drainage, which is water drained from mines. Acid runoff further dissolved heavy metals into water, and acid mine drainage can be increased by the action of certain bacteria (aka, sulfuric acid from pyrite can leech heavy metals from rock, and the acid can be worsened by bacterial action, resulting in this drainage becoming highly toxic).

Problems with mine drainage include contaminated drinking water, disrupted growth and reproduction of plants and animals, and corroding effects of acid on structures.

In general, sulfide rich and carbonate poor materials produce acid drainage. In contrast, alkaline rich materials, even with significant sulfide concentrations, often produce alkaline conditions in water.

Abandoned mines can fill with water (flood) because there’s no pumping occurring (the steam engine was 1st invented to solve mine flooding). This results in unabated chemical reactions, potentially making it very toxic, and this water can even discharge into lakes and streams, killing aquatic life and polluting the environment.

Further acid drainage can result from waste rock, which is material that must be removed to reach the ore. It is often deposited in piles close to the mine, and as it is exposed to air and moisture, it causes weathering, which can generate acid drainage.

Yidhra’s 3rd letter does mention “microbial deposits” in the water and soil as well as the soil’s “acidity and alkalinity”. So maybe it could be connected…?

Part 2

Thoughts regarding specifically how Norton escaped Golden Cave

Norton’s 3rd letter states the police report claimed Norton “dug his way out through a mountain creek a few dozen meters away from the mine”.

It is unlikely Norton simply dug himself out from the mine.

Golden Cave’s backstory states it was “hundreds of meters” deep at least. Mines back in that day (late 19th century) were already 1000s of feet deep (1 was 700-900m = 2300 – 3000ft). Prior to the 1850s, miners could simply walk in to a mine to get where they needed to go, but later on, the mines became so deep, they had to use steam elevators to enable access to deeper seems.

We know Norton was trapped in Golden Cave for some time after the mine collapse considering we know he came out with meteorite chunks. Based on what we see on the lowest level of Golden Cave in game, this likely implies the meteorite was potentially at the bottom, meaning there’d be quite some distance to dig himself out.

The other issue is most miners don’t simply dig themselves out after a collapse. There’s nothing to support the roof and sometimes little space to put the material you remove, not to mention usually a lack of suitable tools. Trying to dig yourself out of a collapsed mine may even weaken the area near the collapse, potentially causing further collapses. This is why most miners usually have to wait to be rescued.

It is possible that Norton was able to access an alternate escape route. Mines were required to have more than 1 shaft following the Hartley mine disaster in 1862. If it or a raise (vertical or inclined passage) had a safety ladder, it’s possible he could work his way back up. During the Barnes-Hecker mine disaster (the mine was flooded), the sole survivor saved himself by climbed 80 stories (around 800 feet) in just about 14 minutes.

Another option is via an intake airway (or downcast shaft), which brings fresh air from the surface into the underground mine. Miners could feel the air to figure out a way out of the mine, and this was breathable air, free from fumes and dust in the case of a fire or explosion. A return airway (upcast shaft) is also an option, but not as nice of one due to the fact it carried air out of the mine to the surface, and this air could include dust, toxic fumes, and such. But miners have escaped via vents before (such as in the Quecreek Mine disaster, which they did to escape the mine as it started flooding).

And if acid mine drainage is potentially related to the pollution and dead animals/plants in Lakeside (Yidhra’s 3rd letter, Grace trailer/deductions), maybe that means there was drainage or some other hole into or out of the mine around there that Norton could’ve used to escape. Norton’s deduction 9 does make it sound like police didn’t expect anyone to survive, which could imply the normal entrances or exits were inaccessible following the collapse, meaning using an alternate, less known route might make sense. We know Norton was knowledgeable, and in the trailer we see him with a map, though based on how his coworkers in that scene look like they might take it from him, he might not have had that, but he may have at least memorized the different ways in and out, and thus how he could manage to escape (especially as explosions can damage the lifts they use to normally get down to the deeper levels).

Norton likely survived due to being some distance from the blast. Some of his coworkers likely died from the initial explosion. The others potentially could’ve succumbed to lack of oxygen, potentially aided if any fires started as a result (which could further weaken supports or cause more collapses), or due to potentially high concentrations of firedamp further down. Afterdamp (choking gas) is a mix of toxic gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen) after a methane explosion, and it is just as deadly as the actual explosion. Symptoms include head swimming/disorientation, feeling very tired, difficulty doing anything or exerting yourself, and a desire to just close your eyes and go to sleep (followed soon by death from the lack of oxygen).

[nightlyrequiem]

Be Still My Heart

Chapter 2- Analyze, Adapt, Overcome

Masterlist AO3

New Chapter Every Saturday

You're the best in the meth industry but a new product suddenly pops up. You and your boss, Valeria, must figure out who is making it so you can take back the market. All the while tension is building between the two of you.

A/N: This is one is a bit short and a little uneventful, but I promise you it gets good. I'm very excited to get to the later chapters.

Tags/Warnings: Illegal Substances, Boss Employee Relationship, Angst, Some Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Manipulation, Suggestive Themes, Smut (But Only in CH20.), Dual POV

 Even after a few weeks, you can't get that meth out of your mind. You lightly swish your hips to the beat of the song playing in your earbuds. Your gloved hands carefully pour the liquidated Red Phosphorus into an Erlenmeyer flask. Even through the gas mask you can still pick up wafts of the garlicy smell of the chemical. You'll have to talk to Valeria about getting a new a gas mask. Destroying your lungs is not one of your goals in life. While you work on this batch your mind strays to the meth Valeria brought you. The Enginuity of its creation is both impressive and irritating. You're a little upset that you didn't think to use morphine. Although that isn't entirely your fault. Getting unlicensed morphine here is like pulling teeth. That's why Las Almas's choice of drug isn't heroin.

You inaccurately hum along to the song while you measure the proper amount of Sulfuric Acid to add to the Red Phosphorus. You're very precise with your cooking. Too little and it won't be as potent, too much and you'll blow it up. You learned that one the hard way. Someone abruptly taps you on the shoulder and you yelp in surprise, almost dropping the Sulfuric Acid. You set it down on the steel counter and turn to look at the intruder. Corra's light brown eye's stare back at you, shining with amusement.

"Valeria wants to see you in her office." She informs you. Her eyes dart to the equipment behind you.

"Alright, tell her I'll be right there I just need to finish up." You reply. Corra leaves and you turn back around to swiftly finish up this batch.

Once done, you leave it in the big metal container to let the liquid product ferment into the iconic methamphetamine crystals. You make your way out of the lab after properly disrobing out of your PPE and neatly stuffing it back into the locker. On your way towards Valeria's office, you're ignored by the others. You see two of her worker's snorting something off of a table. You assume it's your product. You'll have to tell Valeria about that. Like you'll need to tell her about the gas mask. Come to think of it, you're also severely low on Ephedrine.

You open the door to her office and walk in. Giving Deigo a flat look, one he returns. Valeria gives you a much more friendly look and invites you to sit down.

"I want to discuss this new meth going around." She says. Leaning back and bringing a lit cigarette to her lips. 

"I think it's coming from one of those little gangs that have been popping up." Diego remarks. Furrowing his brows. Recently the Cartel has been dealing with new gangs that think they have what it takes to compete. After Valeria was arrested, multiple people began vying for the metaphorical crown. Her incarceration created a power vacuum, as Valeria would put it.

You shake your head at Deigo's claim, refuting it quickly.

"No, I don't think it's even being produced in Las Almas, let alone Mexico." You object. Both Deigo and Valeria look at you.

"Why do you say that?" Asks Valeria. You look at the wall. It's painted some muted red colour. It makes the room feel smaller. 

"Because," You say, staring at the wall. "morphine is such a hassle to obtain, if someone was stealing it, we'd know. And if there were a group big enough to pay hush money to hospitals, we'd know about them too."

Valeria nods in agreement.

"She's right." Valeria murmurs. Deigo rubs a hand over his knee, smoothing over the denim of his pants.

"There is that growing nuisance in Pajaro Azul." He grumbles. Pajaro Azul, Las Almas's sister city. You went there once and hated it. It even has it's own bigwig cartel. You'd never tell anyone, but they scare you a little bit. The men look ten times meaner and the man who runs it is crazy. You prefer the traditional small-town cartel in Las Almas. Even if their reach and influence is anything but.

"Let them deal with it." You say, furrowing your brows. "If the meth is coming from there then I doubt the Pajaro Azul Cartel will let that slide for much longer."

Valeria stubs out her smoke and stretches. Deigo fixes you with a look of annoyance.

"They've let them get this far." He grunts. "They're a bunch of pussies. We need to take care of it ourselves." 

You look to Valeria for backup but she's looking at Deigo. Regarding him with careful consideration.

"I'll think about it." She says. "I don't want to tread on their toes though. A war is the last thing we need right now." Her gaze darkens. Just a year ago, Valeria was caught by Los Vaqueros, aided by foreign military. The whole town was ravished by one of the groups going rogue and both she and the town are still recovering.

It's thanks to you, in your humble opinion, that the cartel is healing so fast. Your meth is making them great money. Well, it was. Until that other stuff just appeared out of thin air. The thought brings a jealous scowl to your face.

"How did that new batch do?" You ask. Looking at Valeria intently. You worry the inside of your cheek. Valeria glances at Diego. Nodding at him. He takes the cue and stands up, brushing off his pants and lumbering out of the room, shutting the heavy wooden door behind him. The office feels much lighter without his intrusive presence. "It didn't sell." She says.

You frown at her. "What?"

"Most of our usual customers weren't buying." Valeria explains. "The other stuff is cheaper and better."

The statement is a wrecking ball to your pride. Cheaper and better? You frown deeply at the news.

"Well..." You start, picking at a loose thread on the sleave of your shirt. "I'll have to come up with a new recipe." Something more addictive than the Super Meth. Which will be hard without morphine. Valeria stares at you as you go quiet, retreating into the dark folds of your brain. Meth causes intense sugar cravings. Which is one of the main reasons meth users have bad teeth. That and the Acetone in it reacts badly to saliva, drying it up which makes keeping bad bacteria at bay much harder, causing cavities and rot.

You brighten. That's it, sugar.

"I need sugar." You tell her. Looking up at her with renowned determination. Valeria blinks but nods.

"Okay." She agrees. "How much?"

"Three pounds should be enough." You say, then pause. Something in your mind is wiggling for attention but the harder you try to think about it, the less clear it becomes. You needed to do something. You shrug it off. If it were important, you would have remembered.

Valeria dismisses you and you head back down to the lab. You sit at your little desk and begin to start planning out the proper ratios of your ingredients. Excitement wells up inside of you. Nothing is better than a good challenge. You spend hours carefully crafting a new recipe. A few orange crystals of the meth sit on your desk for motivation.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Analysis: East of Eden (Cultural References)

IWW: IWW stands for the Industrial Workers of the World, an international union which achieved the height of its membership and power in the early 1920s. Colloquially, they were known as the Wobblies and were primarily focused on promoting the interests of the world’s growing class of industrial workers.

Woodmen of the World: fraternal organization founded in 1890 which also functions as a private insurance company for its members.

Bindle-stiffs: colloquial for migrant workers; hoboes.

Paregoric: 18th and 19th century home remedy with varied uses (diarrhea, cough suppressant). Main ingredient is opium. Was available as an over-the-counter drug in the United States until 1973, when it was classified as a narcotic and is now only available by prescription.

Iron Wine Tonic: a tonic used to regain strength. Contained wine and iron citrate.

Lydia Pinkham: an herb and alcohol based tonic name after its inventor. Used to alleviate menstrual pains.

Carbolic Acid: also known as phenol. In small doses, is used in the production of many common cosmetic products. In large doses, it is a poison.

Epsom Salts: magnesium and sulfur compound. Can be used as a laxative, but is also used for bath salts.

Castor Oil: odorless and tasteless oil from the Castor plant. Was a popular home remedy for constipation.

Model T: first mass produced American automobile by Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company. Fifteen million Model Ts were produced between 1908-1927.

Magneto: an electrical generator. For the Model T, a flywheel magneto produced alternating currents of electricity to a coal and could be considered the equivalent of a modern day alternator.

Quartermaster Corps: a logistical branch of the U.S. Army providing service support, such as material (including ammunition) and food distribution, and field services such as repairs for showers/laundry/clothing.

Faro: a card game.

Fan-tan: popular Chinese casino game similar to roulette.

Hayburner: slang name for a horse.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[myceliumbutch]

Share to slowly dissolve your followers

[eirinstiva]

A bit about "oil of vitriol"

In the last letter that I received from my friend Watson I was waiting for a girls fight but Kitty Winter surprised everybody with a chemical attack using "vitrol" against the villainous Baron Adelbert Gruner.

Oil of vitrol is an outdated name of sulfuric acid (H2SO4), a colorless oily liquid widely used in industrial processes. This name comes from "vitrols", sulfates of different metals like copper, iron or aluminium. My favourite one is copper(II) sulfate penahydrated CuSO4·5H2O because is blue:

[ID: blue crystal of copper(II) sulfate]

Sulfuric acid has been known for many centuries, but medieval European alchemists called it "oil of vitrol" because they prepared this oily sustance by roasting iron(II) sulfate FeSO4·7H2O or green vitriol in an iron retort.

[ID: green crystals of iron(II) sulfate heptahydrate]

There are many ways to produce sulfuric acid but in 1831 British vinegar merchant Peregrine Phillips patented the contact process. This method is economical for production of sulfuric acid in high concentrations and still in use today.

It surprised me how cold blood acted Kitty Winter carrying the oil of vitriol considering this hazards:

- CORROSIVE and/or TOXIC; inhalation, ingestion or contact (skin, eyes) with vapors, dusts or substance may cause severe injury, burns or death. - Fire will produce irritating, corrosive and/or toxic gases. - Reaction with water may generate much heat that will increase the concentration of fumes in the air. - Contact with molten substance may cause severe burns to skin and eyes. - Runoff from fire control or dilution water may cause environmental contamination.

But during those years there wasn't many norms related to use, transport and labelling of chemicals like today, even the treatment of chemical burns is different. Dr. Watson used water to dilute the acid, then applied oil and cotton to protect the wounds. Currently he standard first aid treatment for acid spills on the skin is irrigation with large quantities of water. Washing is continued for at least ten to fifteen minutes to cool the tissue surrounding the acid burn and to prevent secondary damage. Contaminated clothes should be removed to wash the skin underneath. Additional measures like diluted solutions of sodium bicarbonate can be used for smaller burns but in case like Gruner is better to use the shower 🚿

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Canary Media:

Travertine Technologies, a Colorado-based climate tech company, is building a multi-million dollar demonstration plant alongside a metals refining facility near Rochester, New York. The plant will recycle discarded gypsum to make sulfuric acid while removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

For the project, Travertine is partnering with Sabin Metal Corp., a precious metals refiner and recycler. Travertine’s new demo plant will take gypsum — a mineral that can be used in anything from fertilizer to building materials — that is sitting near Sabin’s facility and turn it into sulfuric acid using the carbon dioxide it traps through direct air capture. Travertine will then sell the sulfuric acid to Sabin to use in its metallurgical processing.

When she founded the company in 2022, Travertine CEO Laura Lammers initially planned to build a low-cost, scalable, and permanent method for trapping carbon dioxide. But in talking with lithium miners, she realized waste from the industry could be used to permanently store the greenhouse gas, she told Canary Media.

That proposition is particularly interesting in that it could simultaneously serve to recycle waste from the mining industry and remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

But Travertine’s 50 foot by 50 foot demo plant will be capable of removing only 45 tons of carbon dioxide a year on a net basis, according to Owen Cadwalader, the startup’s chief operations officer. That’s a minuscule amount compared both to what some other direct air capture facilities are able to remove and the amount that a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says must be removed from the atmosphere to fight global warming.

“​Because of the scale of global sulfuric acid use, our process has economical gigaton-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) potential while simultaneously eliminating industrial sulfate waste,” Lammers said in a statement announcing the company’s new demo plant. Lammers said her goal is for the company to have a plant capable of capturing half a million tons of carbon dioxide a year within a decade.

Travertine has $10.7 million in funding to pay for the project, including $7.5 million in venture debt financing from Builders Vision and $3.2 million in grant funding from the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, according to a news release.

[iamthepulta]

wait no please explain mineral processing!!!

I gasped in delight at the ask, haha. I love mineral processing.

Mineral processing is the theory of economically getting your desired element out of whatever it naturally comes in. So Li out of spodumene, or Cu out of chalcopyrite. It's usually split into hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy (liquid chemistry and melting the fuck out of it, respectively), and often taught as hard rock extraction, but you need it for Every Element, really. So you can also focus on extracting phosphates, or nitrates, or uranium! It's chemistry++~

Personally, I know the most about copper extraction and my focus is on hydrometallurgy/geometallurgy, although pyrometallurgy is near to my heart. Copper is coincidentally a really good example of how the two work because it comes as so many natural minerals. (Further explanations under the cut...)

So for copper minerals! You have a whole slew of oxides and sulfides. They occur in different part of your orebodies under different states of oxidation/sulfidation. Take Chrysocolla, Malachite, Chalcocite, and Chalcopyrite. (Cu-silicate)(an oxide), (Cu-carbonate)(an oxide), (Cu-Sulfide), and (Cu-Fe-Sulfide).

Mines usually use hydrometallurgy for oxides by sticking them in a leach heap and pouring sulfuric acid over the whole thing. The acid selectively picks up the Cu ion from silicates and carbonates, leaving the primary tetrahedra alone. The sulfides can work with this chemistry if the mineral's comfort zone is outside of the current conditions (Chalcocite does leach, but usually leaves a Cu ion in the structure as CuS) but minerals like Chalcopyrite are very poor leachers because the outer rim of ions are ripped away, leaving a somewhat-hypothetical "passive layer" of Fe/S that won't react with the acid. So if you have a mine with a lot of Chalcopyrite, you'll be leaving money on the table unless you do something.

So people use pyrometallurgy! Which is what we've been using since the Bronze Age, really. You crush the rock to micrometer grains, use the hydrophobic properties of sulfur to "float" the sulfides in water, then send all of it to the smelter and melt the shit out of it, while adding particular chemicals and minerals to enhance copper recovery while suppressing sulfides you don't want, like sphalerite and galena.

It's REALLY cool. I'm biased of course, but I absolutely love the whole cycle. xD Being in mineral processing also gets you on the backside of geopolitics because you're the only person who understands how to GET things and WHERE to get them and why it's not as simple as pulling Cu out of the ground.

Feel free to ask questions!! I love processing so much, and mining in general, even though I'm only a master's student.

((And NO STUPID QUESTIONS. The mining industry is a goddamn black box DO NOT feel bad if you don't know what stuff means or formulas, or processes. I swear I learn one new word a week. They also have fifty names for everything too because 50 names are always better than 1. 👍)

[sukimas]

i'd like to note that unless you have industry scientist levels of money, all home chemistry is ridiculously macgyvered. your apparatus sucks ass and that's okay. just don't buy a 25L barrel of sulfuric acid off a bulk chemical supply store and then forget about it in your closet until you have to move like one guy i know.

[scotianostra]

15th February 1817 saw the birth in Glasgow of Robert Angus Smith.

You may not have heard of him, or maybe you read about him in my previous post? Anyway we have all heard of acid rain, defined by National Geographic magazine thus: “Acid rain describes any form of precipitation that contains high levels of nitric and sulfuric acids. It can also occur in the form of snow, fog, and tiny bits of dry material that settle to Earth.”

The words “acid rain” were coined as long ago as 1859 by Angus Smith, who seven years earlier had made the discovery that northern cities across Britain were suffering from rainfall that contained heavy pollutants that were the result of the burning of coal that was rich in sulphur. His research found that the worst-affected city was his home town of Glasgow.

Robert Angus Smith was born in Pollokshaws the seventh son and 12th child of John Smith, originally from Ayrshire, and his wife Janet, daughter of James Thomson who owned a mill at Strathaven in Lanarkshire.

His elder brother John was a big influence on Angus’s life. John eventually became a senior teacher at Perth Academy, and was himself a scientist who would research theories on colour and light. He encouraged his younger brother to read the works of Joseph Priestley, the pioneering English chemist, and Angus Smith was greatly influenced by Priestley’s writings.

He attended Glasgow University from the age of 13, apparently to prepare for a career in the Church of Scotland ministry, but he left without graduating and then became a tutor to families, first in Scotland and then in England. In 1839 he accompanied the Bridgeman family to Germany where he remained to study under the Professor Justus Liebeg, gaining his PhD in 1841.

On returning to England he took a post at Manchester Royal Institution as assistant to Lyon Playfair, an Indian-born Scot and a scientist and politician.

Playfair passed on his own interest in the sanitation of towns and cities to Angus Smith, who left the Institution to set up in business as an analytical chemist. As concern grew about pollution, his services were in demand, and in one famous experiment he waited until a crowded room had emptied then collected the residue on windows to prove that human breath exuded not just carbon dioxide but organic matter dangerous to health.

Smith once graphically described the effects of Manchester’s polluted atmosphere, in a letter to the Manchester Guardian published on November 2, 1844.

He wrote: “Coming in from the country last week on a beautiful morning, when the air was unusually clear and fresh, I was surprised to find Manchester was enjoying the atmosphere of a dark December day… Those who would defend such evils, who would remain careless as long as any probable cause is unremoved, must surely be devoid not only of mercy, but of clear perception and of good taste. The gloominess of uncleanness is everywhere around us.”

In 1851 he began the research that would make him the “father of acid rain” as he is often known. Smith proved that sulphur compounds in the air of towns and cities were the result of burning coal and coke transported in air and rainwater, and even as the industrial revolution was bringing more and more factories into being, Smith was arguing that manufacturers should be held responsible for their pollution.

He investigated poor housing and water quality, and published numerous papers that formed the basis of the developing science of environmental chemistry. One report on the problems of pollution for the Royal Mines Commission was particularly devastating in its scientific indictment of the polluters.

Smith was called as an expert witness in a court case over factory and mine pollution and his testimony was convincing. Consequently when the British Government decided to legislate – in the Alkali Act of 1863 – to try and cut pollution from mining and manufacturing, there was really only one man to turn to as the first chief of the alkali inspectorate and thus Smith spent much of the next two decades transforming attitudes to pollution.

In 1872 Smith published his Air and Rain, the beginnings of a Chemical Climatology, in which he collected the result of his experiments. It proved how ground-breaking his work had been.

With honorary degrees from both Glasgow and Edinburgh University, Angus Smith was honoured in his own lifetime. His health declined badly in his later years and he died at at Colwyn Bay, North Wales, on May 12, 1884, being buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s, Kersal, Manchester.

He was paid a most generous tribute in the first edition of Nature magazine following his death: “For upwards of 40 years he laboured unceasingly to show how chemistry might minister to the material comfort and physical well-being of men — not in the manufacture of new compounds useful in the arts, or in the establishment of new industries – but in raising the general standard of the health of communities by checking or counteracting the evils which have followed in the train of that enormous development of the manufacturing arts which is the boast of this century.

“In his true vocation, as the chemist of sanitary science, Smith worked alone, and we have yet to find the man on whom his mantle has fallen."

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Mosquito bite prevention with cellulose nano crystals

A study proposes a new way to prevent mosquito bites, based on an inexpensive and readily available biomolecule. Mosquitos spread potentially fatal diseases affecting humans, including malaria, zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever—making mosquitoes the deadliest animals on Earth.

Daniel Voignac and colleagues propose a mosquito bite prevention method based on cellulose, an abundant biological molecule, readily available in wood industry waste, as well as local food and paper waste. Treating cellulose with sulfuric acid prompts the molecule to assemble into cellulose nano crystals, which then self-assemble into strong, transparent barrier films. Mixed with water and a small amount of glycerol, the nano crystals can be applied to the skin like a gel.

In trials with live Aedes aegypti mosquitos—for which one of the authors placed his own hands in a cage with an average of 15 female mosquitos for 10 minutes—use of the cellulose nano crystal gel reduced feeding significantly, but did not seem to pose a physical barrier, suggesting the film actually functioned as "chemical camouflage," hiding the volatile organic compounds emanating from human skin that the insects use as cues to find a meal. In further tests with simulated skin, cellulose nano crystals spiked with the mosquito-repelling compound indole were the most effective at reducing "bites."

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[acridtongue]

THE MOUTH TO HELL IS GRINNING WIDE IN FRONT OF YOU ...　　

* ◟ : 〔 LEE DONG-WOOK , NON BINARY + HE / THEY 〕 ba-rom, lee , some say you’re a forty year old lost soul among the neon lights. known for being both amorous and erratic, one can’t help but think of enlacing by clipping when you walk by. are you still the underboss / memory maker for the terrors / stoneage industries, even with your reputation as the hellmouth? i think we’ll be seeing more of you and WHY DO YOU ALWAYS A SMILE WITH FAR TOO MANY TEETH ; THIS SMILE HAS NEVER INVITED COMFORT, THE MISPLACED LAUGHTER BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO RESPOND, A BEAUTIFUL FACE DOESN'T EQUAL A BEAUTIFUL SOUL, although we can’t help but think of midnighter ( wildstorm comics ) + corinthian ( the sandman ) + ryou asuka ( devilman crybaby ) whenever we see you down these rainy streets.

... IF YOU SMELL THE SULFUR IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE

TW: NONE AT THE MOMENT.

BASICS

full name. ba-rom, lee nicknames. baron / rome date of birth. june 11th. zodiac. gemini. age. 40 gender. masc nonbinary. pronouns. he/they sexuality. bisexual. occupation. underboss for the terrors, memory maker for stoneage industries

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

height. 6'1. hair color. dark brown. eye color. black. build. lanky, but built well. very subtle muscle tattoos.   hellmouth tattoo sleeve, on his right arm. sword tattoo, at the back of his neck. mechanical joints on his left hand. piercings.  tongue piercing, double earlobe on his left ear and antihelix, single lobe on his right ear and triple helix.

PSYCHE

stability. erratic. intelligence.  above average. positive traits. amorous. charismatic. exuberant. negative traits. erratic. manipulative. arrogant. alignment. lawful evil. temperment. choleric-sanguine. sins.  lust / greed / gluttony / sloth / pride / envy / wrath. virtues.  chasity / charity / temperance / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice.

AESTHETICS

nightmare in a suit. a grinning face in a melancholic room. beautiful, but rotten inside. tongue laced in acid. too charming to be honest. the devil you know.

FACTS DUMP -

since barom was a child, he's had the innate interest in technological advances. despite his extroverted personality, his hobbies were always quite introverted. learning his own code, delving into the seedier parts of the web. since an early age he was making strings of numbers useless to those interested in things more physical. however, this was the perfect start for a future memory maker.

as a memory maker, he specializes in memories meant to reflect trauma and the swirl of emotions which comes from it. graphic details concerning a magnitude of negative character regression, intense emotions and feelings of shame. while this is his specialty, he also is intrigued by introducing feelings of euphoria and the concept of hubris into replicants. his goal is to make replicants as flawed and unpredictable as natural humans. no one is perfect and no one is spared from trauma or character flaws.

[tanadrin]

can't climate change easily be solved with infrastructure projects like sea walls that the dutch have

with sea walls? uh. i don't think there's enough concrete to build a sea wall across every coastline on earth. and lots of places it wouldn't matter--if you're building on porous limestone, it will just seep up through that. and then you get other effects--you will note that concrete sea walls do not occur in nature, and you're going to massively alter erosion patterns and increase your vulnerability to tsunamis.

sea level rise is only one part of the concern around climate change anyway. increased desertification, rendering currently densely populated regions far less habitable, droughts and flooding resulting from shifting weather patterns, destruction of property due to wildfires, and negative impacts on food production are all going to occur to some extent or another.

if the amount of carbon in the atmosphere gets really high, the severity of these effects will not scale in a simple proportional manner to the amount of warming. carbon sinks like the amazon may cease to function, ocean currents may be altered, ocean acidification may alter marine habitats so much that specific industries like fishing are severely affected.

at a certain point it will make economic sense to bite the bullet and engage in geoengineering projects like injecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere--these projects may have negative environmental effects (like acid rain in the case of sulfur aerosols), but they will be less than the climate continuing to heat up. unfortunately these would be stopgap measures only: problems like ocean acidification aren't going to be affected at all. if co2 levels get too high human brain function starts to be affected.

there really is no long term solution for the problems caused by co2 emissions other than there being less co2 in the atmosphere. because carbon capture technology is still not very sophisticated, this means our best bet, by far, is to just not emit that co2 in the first place. personally i think good ol' nuclear power shows promise--modern technology can make it pretty darn clean and safe! even if we ultimately want to switch to other energy sources, fission is a good transitional option while we flesh out those technologies. continuing to burn coal (the stopgap a lot of anti-nuclear types seem to prefer) is not.

[dustedmagazine]

Uniform — American Standard (Sacred Bones)

Photo by Joshua Zucker

“American Standard,” the title track from the new LP by NYC noiseniks Uniform, will likely dominate the attention garnered by the record. That’s justified: the song is massive, at 21+ minutes, and it’s massively unpleasant — more on those qualities below. But listeners shouldn’t neglect the rest of the release. The shorter songs that compose the remainder of American Standard are just as uncompromising, and they also foreground the band’s gift for coupling a caustic, aggro sensibility with compelling melodic structures. Rarely has noise rock been so tuneful, and then also so awfully punishing.

Godflesh and early Swans (Greed is a useful point of comparison) are clear touchstones for Uniform’s blend of noise rock and industrial music; but this reviewer also flashes on the Cows, c. 1993. Check out the one-two punch of “Shitbeard” and “Ch” from Sexy Pee Story, songs that couple brain-bludgeoning dissonance with weirdly idiosyncratic hooks. Uniform’s sound is less organic and more mechanically insidious than that bovine band from Minneapolis. The squelchy slaughterhouse is swapped for the cold cement of the factory floor — and the dudes in Uniform are driving a steam roller across it, grinding through waves of spilled sulfuric acid.

A more metallic array of factory apparatus is appropriate to American Standard, named for the famous brand of mass-produced plumbing fixtures. As much of the record’s pre-release chatter has indicated, the title track thematizes vocalist Michael Berdan’s long struggle with an eating disorder — and the horrifically long sessions of purging he has done over numerous toilets. The song extends, stretching out inexhaustibly. Berdan does not spare us: “My forehead rests / On dried piss / And twists of hair / […] An acrid film / On the water / I’m consumed / By the stench.” The images are stark, immediate. They need no figural amplification.

The music takes on that task, churning and moving in waves, an inexorable force that dramatizes regurgitation. That rhythmic structure is the song’s dark heart (or gut), but past the ten-minute mark, there is a break into a more dramatic passage, punctuated by a big riff. You can imagine the song’s I-speaker, a barely veiled version of Berdan himself — shattered, driven by impulse’s perverse excitements. One could call the long passage cathartic, but that term’s access to the idea of purgation is both exactly right and exactly wrong. Because after six minutes, the song explodes into a bright, surging river of sound, and Berdan rides it, shouting, narrating there the I-speaker’s particular variety of physical purging.

The listener is presented with a sort of problem. Clearly that last section of the song is the climax, and the musical effect is indeed cathartic. It thrills and it exhausts. We know that the binge-and-purge dynamic of some eating disorders is damaging and destructive. But the skill with which Uniform (including Berdan’s longtime bandmate Ben Greenberg and an expanded rhythm section of Mike Sharp, Brad Truax and Michael Blume) has constructed and performed the song implicates us in its galvanic lifts and kicks. We can’t help but be roused, even pleasured by it. And that’s the thing: there’s an addictive force to some eating disorders, a distorted “I want” that is very, very hard to resist. Uniform’s smart and forceful engagement with those concepts and feelings makes “American Standard” a terrific and terrifying song. It’s hard to hear, but it’s also hard to forget, or to stop.

Jonathan Shaw