Expert Lecture four was amazing! Ronald’s dad came in and talked about science! He talked about a problem-solution. The problem? The U.S had promised not to dump any more waste into the ocean, but naval ships produce a lot of waste. How to get rid of it cleanly? Well, the answer lies in something called supercritical fluids.
What is a supercritical fluid? It’s something in between a gas and a liquid. It’s denser than gas, but not exactly a liquid. It’s a supercritical fluid. Since I’ve always liked states of matter, I was already finding supercritical fluids interesting! There are two kinds of supercritical fluids, water (supercritical) and carbon dioxide (supercritical). Turns out Ronald’s dad is a scientist… working on supercritical fluids! So, now that we know what supercritical fluids are, why are they useful?
Well, you see, they are a clean way of getting rid of trash. All that you need is a reactor, some supercritical fluid, and you’ve got yourself a trash destroyer. So, yay! The naval ship problems are solved. But, not only that, supercritical fluids are solving problems elsewhere. Take coffee and dry cleaning for example. They used to be made with dangerous chemicals that cause cancer, but thank to supercritical fluids they are now safe.
All in all, I thought the expert lecture was the sort of lecture that makes you want to learn more. I especially liked it, since it was our first expert lecture on science. So, as you finish reading this, I hope that you want to learn more about supercritical fluids!
Ronalds dad has some amazing quotes…
“I only succeeded with about 10% of my experiments.”
“Science is the future to solving the world’s problems.”