Alien Lab Disposable: With the myriad of environmental problems the world is facing today, it is only natural for people to find more ways to reuse, reduce and recycle. While these efforts have not been fully adapted by various cultures worldwide, it is still a tiny step towards improving the environmental condition.
Recently, scientists have discovered that you can actually recycle the chemical content in the butts. The American chemical Society has a bi-weekly journal titled Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, in which they reported that scientists have discovered as much as nine different chemical compounds in the butts, after immersing them in water. More interestingly, these chemical extracts were tested on a type of steel used in oil pipes and have discovered that it actually protected the steel from rusting. These scientists reported that the metal surface is actually protected by the chemical compounds found in the butts and that these compounds help prevent the dissolution of the iron atom. Furthermore, they found that nicotine has an anti-corrosion effect on steel. This is vital information for oil producers from all over the world, as the oil industry has spent millions on maintaining their steel pipes.
Funded by China, National Petroleum Corporation is the country’s state oil firm that funded the research, headed by Jun Zhao at Xi’an Jiaotong University’s School of Energy and Power Engineering. The team expressed their desire to find an alternative for these cigarette butts, which pollute the environment as much as 4.5 trillion pieces a year. When disposed improperly, these cigarette butts can actually kill fish, as its contents are very toxic. The researchers have expressed their concern about finding a way to recycle these cigarette butts, as China plays a big role in disposing cigarette butts every day. The country is actually home to as much as 300 million smokers, making it the largest smoking nation. Moreover, China actually consumes as much as one-third of the world’s produced cigarettes.
