This new colorful plastic shines without dyes or pigments
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Oct-2025 15:11 ET (20-Oct-2025 19:11 GMT/UTC)
Plastics are one of the largest sources of pollution on Earth, lasting for years on land or in water. But a new type of brilliantly colored cellulose-based plastic detailed in ACS Nano could change that. By adding citric acid and squid ink to a cellulose-based polymer, researchers created a variety of structurally colored plastics that were comparable in strength to traditional plastics, but made from natural biodegradable ingredients and easily recycled using water.
In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeastern U.S., later downgrading to a tropical storm causing strong winds, flooding and major destruction throughout Appalachia. Now, researchers and public health officials in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters provide a debrief about how their mapping of key locations, including private wells, septic systems and service facilities, helped distribute disaster relief in North Carolina — a part of Appalachia hit particularly hard by the hurricane.
Most of Earth’s water is in the oceans and too salty to drink. Desalination plants can make seawater drinkable, but they require large amounts of energy. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have developed a sponge-like material with long, microscopic air pockets that uses sunlight and a simple plastic cover to turn saltwater into freshwater. A proof-of-concept test outdoors successfully produced potable water in natural sunlight in a step toward low-energy, sustainable desalination.
Brightly colored inexpensive and disposable electronic cigarettes and vapes continue to gain popularity. These devices turn flavored nicotine-containing liquid into a vapor that people inhale over hundreds or thousands of puffs — commonly called vaping. Researchers report in ACS Central Science that after a few hundred puffs, some disposable vaping devices released higher amounts of metals and metalloids than older refillable e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes, thereby raising a user’s risk of health problems.