OutOfthe3

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Electrolysis in batteries

Seal Lead Acid batteries have a long history of being one of the most environmentally friendly resources on the free market and are actually "greener" then soft drink cans, beer cans, newspapers, glass bottles, and tires. Indeed lead-acid batteries are an environmental success story of our time. More than 97 percent of all battery lead is recycled. This is almost twice as much as aluminum soft drink and beer cans, newspapers, glass bottles and tires. In fact lead-acid batteries are the most recycled consumer product of our time. How are lead acid batteries recycled and reused in brand new batteries. What is the recycling process of lead acid batteries? Let's find out.

Lead acid batteries are transported via trucks to recycling centers. Once at recycling centers batteries are broken apart in a hammermill, which is a machine that hammers the battery into pieces. At its most basic level a hammermill is a steel drum that contains a cross-shaped rotor. On the rotors are mounted hammers that pivot when the rotor spins. When the rotor spins the hammers swing and when the battery fed into the drum the batteries broken into pieces.

Once broken the batteries components are separated into 3 categories:

Plastics

Broken pieces of polypropylene plastic are collected, washed, blown dry and sent to a plastic recycler. At the plastic recycler the broken pieces of polypropylene are melted at the plastics correct melting point (or glass transition temperature (Tg), which is the temperature at which a polymer changes from hard and brittle to soft and pliable). Then the molten plastic is passed through a machine called an extruder that shapes the molten plastic into pellets which are then sold back to battery manufacturers to begin the new battery's manufacturing process.

Lead

The lead acid batteries lead grids, lead oxide and other lead parts are cleaned and then heated to 621.5 degrees Fahrenheit - leads melting point. After the lead reaches its melting point the molten lead is poured into ingot molds. The leads impurities, known as dross, floats to the top and subsequently scraped away and then the ingots sit there until they are cooled. After cooling the ingots are sold back to manufacturers for use in new lead plate production.

Electrolyte - Sulfuric Acid

Spent battery acid can be neutralized using an industrial grade baking soda compound. After neutralization the acid turns into water, treated, cleaned to meet clean water standards, and then released into the public sewer system. Or another option would be to convert spent battery acid into sodium sulfate, which is used in laundry detergent, glass and textile manufacturing. Considering that a typical battery recycling plant recovers 10,000 tons of lead, about 4000 tons of sulphuric acid, and can produce about 6000 tons of sodium sulphate - there is definitely some merit into this conversion process.

Spaced Learning

You spend an hour at study, then fifteen minutes at a "break," another hour at your work, another break, and another hour of study, you will have learned more, and memory of the learning will last longer, than if you spend three or even four--straight hours at work.

Perhaps this is due to the reverie in which you are bound to indulge during the break period, reasoning out in your own thoughts the things you've been memorizing. Or, perhaps your mind simply begins to wander when you press it for too long periods of time. At any rate, spaced learning really does work ... try it. Studying for several short periods of time, with intervals of relaxation, generally produces longer-lasting memories than does one long, intensified study period.

Fringe benefits of spaced learning

A peculiar trick which your mind occasionally plays is remembering more of something some time after memorizing it, than very shortly after completion of the memory task. This seems to be a direct contradiction of the memory curve, but it's a very specialized case.

Soon after you've completed a turn at the books, you'll be able to remember a certain portion of the material you've covered, right? But, a few hours, or a day later, when you've spent a little time thinking about the subject, a few points which might have slipped your immediate memory will come to your attention through pattern and association with the related points which you have been able to remember. So, in effect, you are remembering a little bit more than you actually learned at the time of study.

This phenomenon might be a delayed memory of the "forgotten" material's actual position on the page, or a belated understanding of the words which at first you failed to understand, but later found rational in the light of your thinking about the entire subject.

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Fossil Fuel

Can you imagine what life would be like without the use of fossil fuels? Let me start by explaining a little about what fossil fuels are.

In general, Fossil fuels are layers of plants and animals which have died millions of years ago, compressed and buried deep into the earth, through time to form sedimentary rock, such as coal, and liquid hydrocarbons such as oil or gas.

Coal is one of the first fossil fuels known to man, as has been used for a heating source, dating back to early 1600's. Since its discovery, we have found many other uses, such as powering steam driven locomotives, and today is used in factories to help produce steel, concrete, paper, plastics, and most importantly "Electricity".

Oil was said to be discovered by the Native Americans. This oil was found seeping to the earth"s surface, and was used for medicinal purposes. The first successful oilwell was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. This oil which was extracted, would find many uses, such as lamp oil. lubricants, and would later be used to power automobiles, trains, plane's, and is still used for these and many other things, to this present day.

Natural gas was basically discovered in the same manner as oil, seeping up through the earths surface, producing the same foul smell comparable to rotten eggs. This resource once contained would be used also for lighting, cooking and heating, and today has globally become one of our main sources of heat.

So ask yourself, could we live without these precious fuels? What would our world be like if these resources had depleted and became non-existent? Each and everyone one of us uses fossil fuels, and the demand and production grows larger everyday. What if rising prices of these precious commodities becomes unaffordable to the average working class? Everyone in this world knows that prices for oil and gas are already increasing at an alarming rate, with no end in sight. Until some one discovers an alternative fuel sources, well fact is fact, we will always be dependent on fossil fuels.

On a positive note, perhaps the rising prices in todays world is a sign that something new is around the corner. Governments and oil companies may be mass producing while the demand is still there. Maybe they know something we don't. Transportation counts for 70% of all the oil we use and now the transportation industry is starting to evolve into a new era with the production of the hybrid vehicles. This is a very positive sign, and could be the stepping stone for many, to increase awareness of how the extensive use of fossil fuels, is impacting our environment today.

To conclude, "Fossil Fuels", are a very important ingredient in our every day life, and we will always be dependent on them, but also new doors are being opened to lessen that dependency, and maybe one day the answer to my question, Can you imagine what life would be like without the use of fossil fuels? "Yes".

Writing and Communication

Language, as people say, is just a part of communication. In turn, writing, like speech, is one of the things we can do with language.

Writing, in any form, has the job of conveying information and meaning from a writer to an intended audience, or readership, for a particular purpose. The form it takes is quite various, and is to do with the medium or media in use.

Students have to demonstrate to their supervisors in an essay or dissertation that they have mastered its subject. Business organisations need to attract the attention and patronage of their customers through very brief radio and television ads, or, increasingly, through banner or pay per click (PPC) ads, online. Best men continue to address 'dearly beloved' audiences with not a little trepidation, but a carefully prepared and hopefully well rehearsed speech. The variety of writing is endless.

Writing then, is any planned, and structured, language-based communication, designed with an audience, a particular purpose, and a medium or media in mind. Its special significance - distinguishing it from more casual or spontaneous uses of language - is that it functions in the absence of its author. We do not need a Walton or a Sainsbury to tell us in person that their latest offers are too good to miss. Likewise, a well written research paper from the 1950s may reveal its author's errors of understanding, or lack of data, but will leave us in no doubt as to their way of thinking or rationale.

The reason authors or publishers can leave us to decode their messages is our community of language, values, cultural norms and references. So long as a piece of writing fits in well with those things a particular audience shares in common, the communication has a good chance of doing what its author intended. To get this right, the writer has to recognise the context in which they are writing, and plan the attributes of their writing accordingly.

The attributes of writing

We have already alluded to several different domains of writing (e.g. education, business). Depending on where we are working, media selection and/or document type(s) selection will be more or less automatic. In education and research, though there may be local differences in format and editorial preferences, the accepted or conventional forms of essay, dissertation, or thesis, paper, and article are well known and understood. Professionals are often required to produce bids, proposals, or pitches, which sometimes take a shape prescribed by the sponsor of the project, and are at other times left to the discretion of the authors.

In business organisations however, where customers, employees, investors, and other stakeholders have to be communicated with, at different times, for different reasons, and where some activities - e.g. brand building - call for integrated media selections as part of a coordinated campaign, these choices will be far more discretionary. Each piece in the jigsaw, however large or small, is a structured communication, requiring careful planning and execution.

All of the most effective communications are planned at the level of the individual execution or document (whether a thesis, brochure, or webpage).

Decisions on structure and layout are very important. Subject to the guidelines offered (e.g. word count, running time etc), one choice of structure over another can do much to affect 'standout', readability, look and feel. On some occasions, sections should be used to break up a whole into manageable parts. Perhaps these are better left undeclared or unseen (though they may have been used to write the piece); perhaps very obvious signposting is an advantage.

The use of language itself is more complicated a matter than it first appears. Style, register, tone of voice, and diction all need to take into account the positioning of the author or publisher, given the audience, the objectives of the communication, and the medium. A more or less formal style might be appropriate. Words and phrases need to be chosen with care, asking more or less of the reader, and creating a particular sort of impression.

A similar point needs to be made in relation to idiomatic words or phrases and other culturally-specific references.

Proper sentence construction follows on from choices about style and register, subject to the proviso that voices and tenses should be kept consistent as far as possible. Grammatical errors should be avoided, except at the expense of stilted English; 'this is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put', said Churchill.

Finally, spelling errors, typographical errors, or 'typos', and other production errors need to be corrected. Whilst production errors do not necessarily impede a communication's effectiveness, their risk and potential cost tend to vary with the audience. The indignation of a lay readership over a journalist's or editor's fallibility may not stop it from enjoying a piece, or continuing to take a newspaper. On the other hand, a large procurement function trying to form an overall impression of the likely competence, reliability, and accuracy of a professional firm, may, whether consciously or not, look less favourably on the production errors in a technical consulting bid.

Good writing

To recap then, writing is any structured, language-based communication, designed for a particular purpose, with an audience and medium in mind.

Good writing is writing which delivers the objectives of the communication, reaching and affecting the intended audience in the desired way, as far as possible within the selected media.

DIY FunScience Projects

PS: These Fun science projects should be done with adult supervision.

The first fun science project is called "The Balloon Inflater"

MATERIALS:

A carbonated soft drink in a bottle, a balloon, and a twist tie from a bread or a garbage bag.

WHAT TO DO: 1. Place the balloon over the mouth of the bottle and securing it to the bottle with the twist tie. 2. Have the adult hold the bottle and place their thumb over the mouth of the bottle covered by the balloon. 3. Now shake the bottle for five seconds and release your thumb. 4. The balloon fills with carbon dioxide that was dissolved in the soda pop. That's why they are called carbonated drinks.

This is a great fun science project that can give you that A you want in science class! Here is another great science experiment that anyone can do .

THE BALLOON ROCKET

MATERIALS: A balloon

WHAT TO DO: Simply blow up the balloon. Then, holding it between you thumb and forefinger, let it go and watch it fly.

EXPLANATION: You already know that the air escaped from the opening in which you blew up the balloon. You also noticed that the balloon flew in the opposite direction - this is action and reaction. The first force, air escaping, is the action. The balloon moving in the opposite direction of the air is the reaction.

We use this principle everyday. We push down on a chair to get up. We push our feet to the back to walk forward. A basketball pushes down onto the floor just before it bounces. You can probably think of many other examples.

I hope you have enjoyed these fun science projects. Please remember that these science experiments should be done with adult supervision.

Success Story & a new contributor

click on the picture above for the full version of the article

In this brief post today, we welcome a new contributor to learnsg.blogspot.com, Wenchuan. As documented above as extracted from Temasek Poly's newsletter, he is a young techno-whiz and a student under the diploma in cyber & digital security and was originally from Coral secondary.

He is an example to all that if u have the passion and the interest in a particular field, you can excel no matter where you from or what others feel. As a friend of him, we know he has the optimism to be successful and he shall continue to motivate others.