This is major. However there is not much coverage of it. It is located deep within the inner pages of the newspaper...
News on China's scientific and technological development.
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The China-born scientist making waves in water purification technology
- Lan Weiguang’s mission is to find real-world applications for scientific research
- His nanomembrane systems are used in a range of essential services, from improving waste water to protecting nuclear power plants
Lan is a leading researcher in membrane technology and his systems are now used worldwide to turn waste water into drinking water and remove heavy metal from industrial waste water.
But back in 1997, his process had not been tested outside his Singapore lab.
“I’d proved that it worked in the lab. But customers wouldn’t believe in the product without convincing pilot test results,” he said.
“I took money to pay for the machine out of the joint account with my wife without her agreeing. She was very upset because the savings were meant for upgrading our own home.
“But if I didn’t buy the machine, the pilot-scale experiment could not have continued.”
The investment paid off and Lan’s technology became central to , facilities that remove impurities from Singapore’s used water to produce safe drinking water.
The approach is part of Lan’s broader drive to find real-life applications for science.
At a new plant for his company Suntar in the western industrial district of Tuas in Singapore, the scientist-turned-entrepreneur said his key to success was to go beyond research and development and bring scientific concepts out of laboratories.
“R&D is not enough. Scientists need a platform to translate research innovations into products and industrial applications,” Lan said.
“The scientific community in Singapore is strong at developing theories and technologies, while China offers scenarios for real-world application,” he said. “Sparks ignite when science meets engineering.”
Born in southeastern China, Lan graduated from Xiamen University’s department of chemistry in 1985 and later moved to Singapore on a scholarship, where he studied for a doctorate in advanced water membrane technology and became a naturalised citizen.
He retained links with his university in Xiamen and was promoted to professor in 1999 before becoming director of the institution’s applied membrane technology centre.
In 1996, he founded Singapore-headquartered Suntar, with manufacturing operations in Xiamen, and the company became the first membrane technology firm to be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Science and Technology Innovation Board in late 2019.
Apart from improving waste water, the technology is used in the complex process of producing the antibiotic ampicillin and extracting lithium – a metal key to renewable energy – from salt lakes.
In addition, Lan said, the membrane filtration system was used in nuclear power plants, including the stations in Tianwan, Jiangsu province, and Qinshan in Zhejiang province.
He said the system removed dissolved silicon which could form deposits and disrupt plant operations while retaining essential boric acid, both of which have similar chemical and physical properties.
But water treatment remains the largest market for membrane technology, according to the company. It operates more than 30 waste water treatment plants in eight eastern Chinese provinces, helping to process more than 1 million tonnes of water per day.
In May this year, Lan proposed to start an industrial production line of graphene composite membrane for water purification and waste water treatment in Xiamen in partnership with a team in Singapore who will validate the performance of the new material.
The researchers said incorporating graphene, a thin layer of carbon, into membranes, has the potential to enhance their efficiency and lifespan as it slows down pore clogging.
“I take difficulties on the market as research topics and help industries solve their problems,” Lan said.
WTF....
in Beijing
Published: 9:00pm, 14 Aug, 2022 Updated: 9:00pm, 14 Aug, 2022
Scientists who observed the accelerated growth of mouse neurons after the rodents were exposed to brief, low-dose radiation from terahertz waves say their findings have implications for future communication devices.
Radio waves in the terahertz band can boost a smartphone’s bandwidth to 1 terabit per second (Tbps). It is a hot candidate for , or 6G.
After a three-minute exposure to 100-microwatt pulse radiation with wide frequencies ranging from 0.3 to 3 terahertz, the mouse neurons grow nearly 150 per cent faster than normal in a Petri dish, according to the researchers.
The total length of connections between these neurons also doubled in just three days.
Despite the superfast growth compared with a control, molecular analysis suggested the exposed brain cells remained healthy, according to the scientists.
The discovery could help evaluate the safety of new communication technology and also develop therapies to treat brain diseases, according to the researchers.
“The safety of terahertz radiation protocol is a top concern,” Li Xiaoli, the lead scientist of the study write in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Physica Sinica last month.
Li and his colleagues from the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University said the negative health effects of future communication technology could be avoided by reducing the strength and duration of radiation exposure.
Their results also suggested “terahertz waves of certain frequencies and energies can be developed as a novel neuromodulation technology” to treat or intervene in diseases such as neurodevelopmental disorders.
“Abnormal neuron development and the resulting abnormal neural network structure can lead to the occurrence of various psychiatric and neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism and Parkinson’s disease,” they said.
Radio waves in higher frequencies can transmit more information, but they also carry more energy.
The terahertz waves have a considerably higher frequency than the millimetre waves used in 5G that is capped with a 20 Gbps top speed.
Some terahertz devices have already been used in airport body scanners with the energy waves effectively able to penetrate cloth and produce a clear image of a body with concealed items.
According to a study by researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2009, exposure to strong terahertz radiation for several hours a day, with power reaching a few watts, could increase temperature in brain cells, disturb their development and cause dehydration that reduces cell size and other damage.
But a lower dose of terahertz radiation could increase the production and activity of certain proteins – such as GluA1, GluN1 and SY-38 – that are known to stimulate neuron growth, according to Li’s team.
In these proteins there are lots of hydrogen bonds that vibrate constantly. The frequency of these vibrations happens to fall in the terahertz band.
Terahertz waves “can directly couple with proteins and effectively cause them to resonate in a non-linear manner,” Li’s team said in the paper.
This could “affect the shape of the proteins, and therefore the structure and function of neurons”, they said.
But the internal structure of proteins can vary significantly from one to another. Only certain proteins would respond to relatively weak terahertz radiation, according to the researchers.
They said more investigation was needed to understand the protein changes induced by different exposure intensities.
The exposed brain cells would not grow forever, according to the paper. Two days after the initial radiation the growth rate tended to slow significantly.
In a separate study, professor Liu Jianxin with the Institute of Brain Science at Xian Jiaotong University, Shaanxi province, found that terahertz radiation could make young mice smarter.
Exposure with 90-milliwatt terahertz radiation for 20 minutes a day over three weeks significantly increased the number of new brain cells in young mice, according to their paper published in the domestic peer-reviewed Journal of Terahertz Science and Electronic Information Technology in June.
These new brain cells could help the mice find an escape route more quickly when their lives came under threat, according to the researchers.
But old mice given the same treatment did not show any improvement in the experiment.
- Discovery can help assess new communication technology and also develop therapies to treat brain diseases, Beijing researchers say
- Separate study by team from Xian Jiaotong University finds terahertz radiation can make young mice ‘smarter’ but same effect not found in old mice
in Beijing Published: 9:00pm, 14 Aug, 2022 Updated: 9:00pm, 14 Aug, 2022
Scientists who observed the accelerated growth of mouse neurons after the rodents were exposed to brief, low-dose radiation from terahertz waves say their findings have implications for future communication devices.
Radio waves in the terahertz band can boost a smartphone’s bandwidth to 1 terabit per second (Tbps). It is a hot candidate for , or 6G.
After a three-minute exposure to 100-microwatt pulse radiation with wide frequencies ranging from 0.3 to 3 terahertz, the mouse neurons grow nearly 150 per cent faster than normal in a Petri dish, according to the researchers.
The total length of connections between these neurons also doubled in just three days.
Despite the superfast growth compared with a control, molecular analysis suggested the exposed brain cells remained healthy, according to the scientists.
The discovery could help evaluate the safety of new communication technology and also develop therapies to treat brain diseases, according to the researchers.
“The safety of terahertz radiation protocol is a top concern,” Li Xiaoli, the lead scientist of the study write in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Physica Sinica last month.
Li and his colleagues from the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University said the negative health effects of future communication technology could be avoided by reducing the strength and duration of radiation exposure.
Their results also suggested “terahertz waves of certain frequencies and energies can be developed as a novel neuromodulation technology” to treat or intervene in diseases such as neurodevelopmental disorders.
“Abnormal neuron development and the resulting abnormal neural network structure can lead to the occurrence of various psychiatric and neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism and Parkinson’s disease,” they said.
Radio waves in higher frequencies can transmit more information, but they also carry more energy.
The terahertz waves have a considerably higher frequency than the millimetre waves used in 5G that is capped with a 20 Gbps top speed.
Some terahertz devices have already been used in airport body scanners with the energy waves effectively able to penetrate cloth and produce a clear image of a body with concealed items.
According to a study by researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2009, exposure to strong terahertz radiation for several hours a day, with power reaching a few watts, could increase temperature in brain cells, disturb their development and cause dehydration that reduces cell size and other damage.
But a lower dose of terahertz radiation could increase the production and activity of certain proteins – such as GluA1, GluN1 and SY-38 – that are known to stimulate neuron growth, according to Li’s team.
In these proteins there are lots of hydrogen bonds that vibrate constantly. The frequency of these vibrations happens to fall in the terahertz band.
Terahertz waves “can directly couple with proteins and effectively cause them to resonate in a non-linear manner,” Li’s team said in the paper.
This could “affect the shape of the proteins, and therefore the structure and function of neurons”, they said.
But the internal structure of proteins can vary significantly from one to another. Only certain proteins would respond to relatively weak terahertz radiation, according to the researchers.
They said more investigation was needed to understand the protein changes induced by different exposure intensities.
The exposed brain cells would not grow forever, according to the paper. Two days after the initial radiation the growth rate tended to slow significantly.
In a separate study, professor Liu Jianxin with the Institute of Brain Science at Xian Jiaotong University, Shaanxi province, found that terahertz radiation could make young mice smarter.
Exposure with 90-milliwatt terahertz radiation for 20 minutes a day over three weeks significantly increased the number of new brain cells in young mice, according to their paper published in the domestic peer-reviewed Journal of Terahertz Science and Electronic Information Technology in June.
These new brain cells could help the mice find an escape route more quickly when their lives came under threat, according to the researchers.
But old mice given the same treatment did not show any improvement in the experiment.
Sounds true based on intuition. Think if I give my old man new brain cells, he would still be as stubborn as ever.
Well, there comes another reason for US to ban Chinese 6G.
The Economist: China is refusing to stay in its lane! Boo hoo!
