As the world's population continues to grow, ensuring access to clean and safe water has become an increasingly important concern, yet little is known about how surface water quality will change in the future. 

A new international study has found that the concentration of plastics and microplastics in some lakes is worse than in ‘garbage patches’ of oceans, and debris is reaching the most remote places of the world.

Case Western Reserve University chemical engineer Rohan Akolkar is leading a research team working to develop a new zero-carbon, electrochemical process to produce iron metal from ore.

Led by Professor Kam Bhui at the University of Oxford's Department of Psychiatry, researchers in the UKRI-funded BioAirNet programme, analysed existing studies looking at the effects of both indoor and outdoor air pollution across the life course, from birth and pregnancy, to adolescence and adulthood.

Manganese is an unregulated contaminant often found in drinking water, but safe levels of this metal are currently unknown, and prior research has indicated that overexposure to manganese may be harmful to children.

The study, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, identified large stocks of methane gas leaking from groundwater springs unveiled by melting glaciers.

Researchers have found that one method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is available, affordable, and capable of being implemented right now. Nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance, could be readily abated with existing technology applied to industrial sources.

The combined emissions of metals and other environmentally hazardous substances from ships is putting the marine environment at risk according to a new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

“Until now, there has been no viable method for purifying finished sulphuric acid at all.

The extensive study assessed the movements of 7,137 individual birds from 77 species of petrel, a group of wide-ranging migratory seabirds including the Northern Fulmar and European Storm-petrel, and the Critically Endangered Newell’s Shearwater.