<clicks link> "We couldn't find the page you were looking for." Not exactly confidence inspiring, especially since the material is the one thing I am most curious and worried about, especially its...
How?
Hollow Glass Beads
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Learn more about our material here.
<clicks link> "We couldn't find the page you were looking for." Not exactly confidence inspiring, especially since the material is the one thing I am most curious and worried about, especially its potential ecological impact.
Viable perhaps, but at what cost? My biggest concern is that, given the fact that they're hollow (so will likely float), what effect will they have if ingested by fish, sea birds, etc. They sound...
Our hollow glass beads are essentially very small spheres that float when put in water or melt ponds. Microspheres are used in composite materials, medical technology, biotech, paints and coatings, cosmetics and personal care, automotive, aerospace, and others. They are even applied by the pharmaceutical industry to encapsulate drugs for targeted delivery. Hollow microspheres are typically used as additives to composite materials to lower their density, and have been used and deployed in the environment for decades--they may even be in your drywall.
Microparticles
If you're worried about the "micro," part, not all microparticles are made equal--silica microspheres can actually be a boon to the global silica cycle and ecosystems as long as they're over the size threshold that is deemed harmful to life when breathed in, 10 micrometers. Ice911's silica microspheres average between 35-60 micrometers, well above that 10 micrometer threshold.
Most types of sand do not float... but these microbeads are designed to, and would likely enter the food chain as a result. And even their paper admits more testing on that needs to be done:...
Further study to establish the safety and risks of applying any material to restoring Arctic ice is needed. This includes further characterization of the ultimate fate of such added materials in polar environments—what proportion of the material sinks, floats, or dissolves over time is an area of active investigation by our team. While testing of the materials on fish and birds has shown no ill effects, evaluation of potential impacts by the materials on some further key species, such as marine mammals, needs to be done.
It's light and so gets churned up easily and can probably take quite a while to settle as a result, but do many types of sand actually "float", i.e. have enough buoyancy to stay permanently...
It's light and so gets churned up easily and can probably take quite a while to settle as a result, but do many types of sand actually "float", i.e. have enough buoyancy to stay permanently suspended in, or on the surface of water? Pumice is the only type of sandmineral I can think of that actually floats... but I am not a geologist, so my knowledge is admittedly quite limited here. ;)
Thanks for the in-depth response! p.s. I don't mind "akchually"s in response to my comments, especially if I learn something interesting from them like I just did. ;)
Thanks for the in-depth response!
p.s. I don't mind "akchually"s in response to my comments, especially if I learn something interesting from them like I just did. ;)
I would rather have neither enter the food chain if they're both harmful, and I am simply being skeptical and cautious about that, is all. If they can prove that there is no negative long-term...
I would rather have neither enter the food chain if they're both harmful, and I am simply being skeptical and cautious about that, is all. If they can prove that there is no negative long-term effects of wildlife ingesting these microbeads, then great... but if not, then it definitely calls into question the viability of their proposal IMO.
Huh, no I didn't... I said practically the exact opposite of what you did. You = "I, personally, wouldn't mind if silica was in the food chain rather than plastic" Me = "I would rather have...
Huh, no I didn't... I said practically the exact opposite of what you did.
You = "I, personally, wouldn't mind if silica was in the food chain rather than plastic"
Me = "I would rather have neither enter the food chain if they're both harmful"
And you then went on to state so long as these beads could "help reverse the effects of climate change" then their potential harm "isn't at all bad news"... Whereas I stated that if they could not prove they were harmless to wildlife then their viability would be called into question in my eyes.
<clicks link> "We couldn't find the page you were looking for." Not exactly confidence inspiring, especially since the material is the one thing I am most curious and worried about, especially its potential ecological impact.
Viable perhaps, but at what cost? My biggest concern is that, given the fact that they're hollow (so will likely float), what effect will they have if ingested by fish, sea birds, etc. They sound very similar to microbeads, which are already known to be problematic for the same reason and are being banned as a result.
p.s. Digging further, I found this page:
http://www.ice911.org/beads
Most types of sand do not float... but these microbeads are designed to, and would likely enter the food chain as a result. And even their paper admits more testing on that needs to be done: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018EF000820
It's light and so gets churned up easily and can probably take quite a while to settle as a result, but do many types of sand actually "float", i.e. have enough buoyancy to stay permanently suspended in, or on the surface of water? Pumice is the only
type of sandmineral I can think of that actually floats... but I am not a geologist, so my knowledge is admittedly quite limited here. ;)Thanks for the in-depth response!
p.s. I don't mind "akchually"s in response to my comments, especially if I learn something interesting from them like I just did. ;)
I would rather have neither enter the food chain if they're both harmful, and I am simply being skeptical and cautious about that, is all. If they can prove that there is no negative long-term effects of wildlife ingesting these microbeads, then great... but if not, then it definitely calls into question the viability of their proposal IMO.
Huh, no I didn't... I said practically the exact opposite of what you did.
You = "I, personally, wouldn't mind if silica was in the food chain rather than plastic"
Me = "I would rather have neither enter the food chain if they're both harmful"
And you then went on to state so long as these beads could "help reverse the effects of climate change" then their potential harm "isn't at all bad news"... Whereas I stated that if they could not prove they were harmless to wildlife then their viability would be called into question in my eyes.
LOL, no worries. I have done that before too. :P