Photosynthesis and Endothermic Reactions

Photosynthesis is an example of an endothermic reaction. Photosynthesis works by turning water and CO2 into glucose (C6H12O6) and oxygen. Photosynthesis gets its energy from the sun. Also, it gets its carbon dioxide and water from other living things and nature. Because it uses the sun's energy, not producing it, makes this an endothermic reaction. It happens everywhere around the world, where there are plants and algae.

This is the most important reaction on Earth. It helps people breath and eat. When plants take in CO2, they also release O2, which helps us breath and stay alive. Plants also produce glucose, which gives the plants and other living things energy. Without these 2 things, living things wouldn't survive.

       http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photosynthesis.gif     http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_photosynthesis.html

Synthetic Diamonds

Diamonds are one of the most valuable tools the world has today. Diamond is a type of carbon allotrope, a form of carbon and becomes a big, sturdy molecule, like a trellis. Diamonds also have the strongest covalent bond of any mineral found on earth. This makes it the strongest mineral on the MOHs hardness scale with a score of 10. It is really rare to find natural diamonds these days, so people found out how diamonds are naturally made and attempted to try to make a diamond in a laboratory. They discovered they need to put a ton of pressure on graphite, and raise the temperature to 2,000° ferenheight. They succeeded in making a synthetic diamond.

Synthetic diamonds let people use diamonds for more industrial things, like construction fields to cut metal and other hard things. People can use diamonds for semiconductors. People can also wear diamonds for a lot lower cost. Unfortunately, diamond mines have, or may run out of business.

2015.BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_gateway_pre_2011/chemical/nanochemistryrev1.shtml




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2015.Pixiboy.pixabay.com

Elements Relfections

Think Past:
Before watching Hunting The Elements, I knew a moderate amout about atoms and elements. I knew that every atom had a proton, neutron, and electron. I also knew that ions have positive or negative charge and isotopes are different versions of an element because they have a different number of neutrons. I knew that the nucleus of an atom is very small to the scale of an atom. I knew that the elections were so small and fast, that all you can see in an electron microscope is just a small cloud surrounding the nucleus. I also knew that some atoms swap electoms, which can cause a big explosion. I knew that if you split a uranium or plutonium atom in half, it would cause a chain reaction and cause a big explosion.

Think Present:
I learned a lot from this video. I learned that atoms are highly organized and have distinct properties. I learned about atom decaying and radioactivity and learned about how people think carbon dating works. I also learned some atoms are willing to share electons more than others. Overall, I learned a lot from this video about atoms and elecments.

Think Future:
I will pit this knowledge to use someday. This will better help me understand how the world works and answere some of me curiosities. I'm not interested in science in the future, but it is pretty cool to know new things.

Solar Cookers. How They Work And Benefits.

Third world countries in Africa and all over the World use most of their income just on fossil fuels to cook their foods. These families are struggling just to make enough money to survive. In the jungles of Africa, trees are being chopped down faster than they grow back. This is also devastating for families in need of wood to cook their food. Fossil fuels are one of the most expensive type of fuels people can buy, but it doesn't keep as long. Families are dying from smoke and fumes caused by these fuels. But worst of all, people who can't event afford these types of energy are dying from starvation, infection and disease because they can pasteurize their water.

But, there is a solution to this problem...Solar Cookers! Solar cookers prevent disease, infection, toxic death, and are cost affective. Families don't have to worry about not affording any type of energy, so they can heat up their water, from the sun, to prevent diseases. Solar energy is clean, and don't have to worry about toxic fumes. The Jungles and forests can also benefit from this because there would be a decline in lumbering, which can allow more trees to grow and replenish the forests. 

There are 3 main types of solar cookers, panel, box, and parabolic cookers. You can't really cook with parabolic cookers because it would most likely burn your food. But you can still cook with a box and panel cooker. Well you may be asking then,"How do solar cookers work?" There are four main materials that you need to make a solar cooker: cardboard, black spray paint, aluminum foil or mirror,  and an insulator like plastic wrap to keep the heat in without letting it escape. 

1. When the sun comes out, the light rays will bounce off the reflective surface on one of the panels, and will redirect light to wherever its pointed. Remember, light bounces at the same angles it came in. 

2. Black spraypaint will  insulate the box by absorbing more of the Sun's heat.

3. The plastic wrap will further  insulate the box by making sure that no heat escapes. 

4. In no time, food will be cooked just right, it may not have the same taste as wood, but it is cheaper and lasts forever.

All in all, the solar cooker is the right thing to cook with in countries faced with poverty. And people looking to save money on cooking food. For more, check out this link:
http://www.solarcookers.org/

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cb/Minimum-Solar-Box-Cooker.jpeg

Niemtschk,a.1-7-15. Bennefits to Solar Cooking.www.solarcookers.org. Accessed Jan, 2015.

There are many ways that you can harness the sun from solar cooking and wind power plants, but did you know that you can use the Suns rays to focus light to one place? That actually exists. They do this large scale at a place called Ivanpah.

How does Ivanpah work? Ivanpah consists of 300,000 mirrors that focus light to one place, called the focal point which is at the top of the 3 towers. The top of these towers contains black salt and gets hot. The heat gets transferred to liquid, which gets insanely hot evaporates and turns a turbine, which gets sent to 100,000 plus people a day, and stored so the cities don't get dark at night.

Controversy: There is a big controversy about the Ivanpah power plant that is sure to get some environmentalists mad. There are some reports that birds are flying into the focal point and are getting burned and killed. Whenever you have a new system of energy, there will always be problems to combat.

Conclusions: Ivanpah is a very unique power plant. You don't have to burn off all the fossil fuels if you can just use the energy of the sun. For more about Ivanpah, check out this link, http://www.ivanpahsolar.com/


Ivanpah. "bright source"2014 bright source energy. All rights reserved.

Les trois tours de la centrale en fonctionnement (février 2014)






Les trois tours de la centrale en fonctionnement (février 2014)