Minerals

Antimony (16)
Asbestos (22)
Garnet (16)
Graphite (184)
Manganite (7)
Mica (5)
Mineral (85)
Olivine (12)
Perovskite (170)
Pyrochlore (8)
Quartz (37)
Tetrahedrite (5)
Zeolite (52)

Synopsis: Mining: Minerals:

QUARTZ TUNING FORK The small QCL has only become available in recent years, Tittel says, and is far better able to detect trace amounts of gas than lasers used in the past.

What makes the technique possible is the small quartz tuning fork, which vibrates at a specific frequency

The laser beam is focused between the two prongs of the quartz tuning fork. When light at a specific wavelength is absorbed by the gas of interest

and that excites the quartz tuning fork. he tuning fork is a piezoelectric element, so when the wave causes it to vibrate,

#A portable asbestos detector that could save thousands of lives. A European research project, ALERT, has developed an asbestos detection device that could save thousands of lives.

The project team is building the first real-time, portable detector of asbestos fibres in the air. The low-cost ALERT Rapid Asbestos Detection (ARAD) tool,

which will be the size of a hand-held drill, is expected to enable construction workers and surveyors to test for the mineral's presence in building and demolition sites.

ALERT project coordinator Alan Archer says the tool is expected to instantly give potentially lifesaving information about the levels of asbestos to people working on building and demolition sites

surveying premises, and even firefighters. e hope this instrument will prompt a major change in the way the world addresses the dangers of asbestos, with the ultimate goal of saving lives,

he states. Once embraced as the iracle mineralfor its tough, flexible, fireproof qualities, asbestos is seen now as a health hazard.

It causes lung diseases like the malignant form of cancer called mesothelioma. Yet asbestos is still with us.

Exposure from legacy asbestos products like insulation is the leading cause of work related deaths worldwide,

and until now there has been no way of detecting the lethal presence of asbestos fibres in the air.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 125 million people worldwide encounter white asbestos in the workplace

while the International labour organization (ILO) estimates that 100,000 workers worldwide die each year from all asbestos-related diseases.

ALERT project picks up research from the 1990s by the University of Hertfordshire, UK, which found a way to detect asbestos fibres through a new light-scattering technique.

At the time, the project stalled as it was seen as too costly, but the ALERT consortium used recent technological innovations

and added them to existing research to build a low-cost, portable detector. ur challenge was to take this science

Archer says the project has potentially immense implications. here are no safe levels of asbestos exposure

often leaving those working in asbestos-laden buildings at risk of exposure. Archer is currently working with third parties to develop new prototypes capable of addressing specific market sectors such as demolition

emergency services, asbestos removal and hazardous waste sites. ith ALERT tool, we can give 30 million European workers a means of detecting asbestos the moment it is disturbed,

and avoid becoming one of the 100,000 people worldwide killed each year by exposure to asbestos,

The method it uses draws on the body's natural processes of biomineralisation the production of minerals.

sucking out their water, minerals and carbohydrates. The broomrape or Orobanche does not use chlorophyll, the green pigment critical for photosynthesis in most plants,

"Dulse, which is an"excellent source"of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants and contains a high percentage of protein,

and dissolve the calcium and other stored minerals. Specialized blood vessels nearby pick up the calcium and send it throughout the body.

The lab discovered boiling down a solution of graphene quantum dots (GQDS) and graphene oxide sheets (exfoliated from common graphite) yielded self-assembling nanoscale platelets that could then be treated with nitrogen and boron.

and turn it into a mineral which prevents the toxic material from leaching into groundwater.

They reduced it to a mineral all while not suffering any damage to themselves for prolonged periods of time. ven

GRAPHENE SLURRY FILM The researchers made a thin film of graphene oxide by chemically exfoliating graphite into graphene flakes,

And the main ingredient, graphite, is mined and sold by the ton. Penn State and Shinshu University in Japan have applied for a joint patent on the process.

and zeolites. he technology is separating gases, adds Grunlan, associate professor in the mechanical engineering department. as where they mine it is impure

QUARTZ TUNING FORK The small QCL has only become available in recent years, Tittel says, and is far better able to detect trace amounts of gas than lasers used in the past.

What makes the technique possible is the small quartz tuning fork, which vibrates at a specific frequency

The laser beam is focused between the two prongs of the quartz tuning fork. When light at a specific wavelength is absorbed by the gas of interest

and that excites the quartz tuning fork. he tuning fork is a piezoelectric element, so when the wave causes it to vibrate,

The researchers led by Suman Datta professor of electrical engineering tuned the material composition of the indium gallium arsenide/gallium arsenide antimony

The differing mineral signatures could be reflective of the minerals dredged up at the time of the giant impact.

One of the four craters located toward the outer edge of the basin contained several distinct mineral deposits within its own peak possibly due to sampling a mixture of both upper

It'#possible that the distinct minerals formed as the molten rock from the SPA impact cooled.

and mantle. f you do the impact scaling from models (the SPA impact) should have excavated into the mantlemoriarty says. e think the upper mantle is rich in a mineral called olivine

but we don't see much olivine in the basin. hat'#one of the big mysteries about the South pole Aitken basin.

and it doesn'##t contain olivine that would have substantial implications for models of how the Moon was formed Moriarty says.

Just to see what would happen the researchers treated graphite flakes with the same process

and got mostly smaller graphite flakes.)The dots are water-soluble and early tests have shown them to be nontoxic offering the promise that GQDS may serve as effective antioxidants Tour says.

Cheaper graphite is $800 a ton from China. And coal is $10 to $60 a ton. oal is the cheapest material you can get for producing GQDS

and 12-ethylenediamine (a colorless liquid that smells like ammonia) is able to effectively dissolve a series of nine semiconductors made from combinations of arsenic antimony bismuth sulfur selenium and tellurium.

The theoretical calculations pointed to new families of materials where this often mutually exclusive combination of properties could in fact be stabilized. his structure is something known as a perovskite crystal.

A perovskite crystal has the same cubic lattice of metal atoms but inside of each cube is an octahedron of oxygen atoms

It's not something we had to architect ourselves. fter several failed attempts to physically produce the specific perovskite crystals they had theorized the researchers succeeded with a combination of potassium niobate the parent polar material and barium nickel niobate

#rtificial nose detects dangerous vapors Researchers have developed a way to sniff out solvent gases by combining a common mineral zeolite with a metallic compound based on rhenium.

The challenge for Angel Mart assistant professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Rice university and his team of student researchers was to get their large metallic particles through the much smaller pores of a zeolite cage.

but when they self-assemble inside the zeolite they re trapped. Once washed to eliminate complexes that form outside the zeolites the compound is ready for use.

The study is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The relatively simple technique which two undergraduate alumni initially developed

and gases can t interact with themhe says. o we started thinking of ways to create space between them. nter zeolites. hese zeolites are cages with big cavities

The question was how to trap the bigger rhenium complexes inside. ther groups have trapped ruthenium complexes in zeolites

Then researchers developed the method to put rhenium complexes inside zeolites. The results were outstanding Mart says.

In addition to its use as a frequency reference for lasers a reference cavity could one day play a role equivalent to that of the ubiquitous quartz crystal in electronics.

#Is this mineral to blame for deep earthquakes? University of Chicago rightoriginal Studyposted by Steve Koppes-Chicago on September 25 2013scientists are closer to understanding deep earthquakes which occur

-triggered brittle failures during the olivine-spinel (mineral) phase transformation has many similar features to deep earthquakes. ang

when a mineral common in the upper mantle olivine undergoes a transformation that weakens the whole rock temporarily causing it to fail. ur current goal is to understand why

or flow rather than by the kind of brittle fracturing we see at smaller depthsgreen explains. oreover at depths of more than 400 kilometers the mineral olivine is no longer stable

and undergoes a transformation resulting in spinel a mineral of higher density. he research team focused on the role that phase transformations of olivine might play in triggering deep earthquakes.

They performed laboratory deformation experiments on olivine at high pressure and found the arthquakesonly within a narrow temperature range that simulates conditions where the real earthquakes occur in Earth. sing synchrotron X-rays to aid our observations we found that fractures nucleate at the onset of the olivine to spinel transitiongreen says. urther these fractures propagate dynamically

so that intense acoustic emissions are generated. These phase transitions in olivine we argue in our research paper provide an attractive mechanism for how very deep earthquakes take place. ang says researchers next goal is to study the material silicate olivine which requires much higher pressures.

The Institut National des Sciences de l Univers and L Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the National Science Foundation funded the work.

and developed the ability to react with oxide minerals rather than breathe oxygen as we do to convert organic nutrients into biological fuel.

Scientists at Cornell and Germany s University of Ulm had been making graphene a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms in a chicken wire crystal formation on copper foils in a quartz furnace.

They concluded that an air leak had caused the copper to react with the quartz also made of silicon and oxygen.

when graphite is broken down into layers one atom thick is very strong chemically stable and an excellent conductor of electricity.

or peeled away from thicker chunks of graphite the sheets come off in oddly shaped flakes with jagged protrusions called asperities.

After 50 charge-discharge cycles, the proof-of-concept units retained a capacity that was still more than double that of the graphite currently used for LI battery anodes.

or mechanical peeling, from a crystal of graphite. But exfoliation is a time-consuming process that will never be practical for any of the many potential applications of graphene that require industrial mass production. httpv://www. youtube. com/watch?

Also key was a very rare hydrothermal mineral called aluminum tobermorite (Al-tobermorite) that formed in the concrete.#

Texas, has been working for the last five years to build a lower-power chip by applying to silicon a technology that has been used in quartz wristwatches.

minerals, supplements, and liquids to suit each cow. As the trough swings clear at the end of milking,

and it adjusts food supplements, minerals and medicines for each animal. As for the farmer, aside from filling the hoppers,

Panasonic has found a way to bind the Tio2 to another particle zeolite (a commercial adsorbent and catalyst)

When the novel photocatalytic particles are stirred Tio2 is released from the zeolite and dispersed throughout the water.

If the water is left still it will cause Tio2 to bind to zeolite again making it easy to separate

VTT is also studying the feasibility of printing technology in the mass production of solar panels made from inorganic perovskite materials.

VTT is also currently examining how well the roll-to-roll printing methods are suited to the manufacturing of inorganic solar panels made from perovskite materials.

The first perovskite solar cells manufactured in the laboratory using solution-based processes have been promising. The performance of this solar cell is roughly five times better than that of an organic photovoltaic cell,

New materials such as perovskite can be printed with same methods and increase efficiency in future. VTT has proven the feasibility of the method in its own pilot manufacturing unit,

###The message may come as a surprise to many Americans##40%of us reported taking some sort of multivitamin or mineral between 2003 and 2006.

Via Quartz Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorat

#Secret code discovered in human DNA Genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. A secret second code hiding within DNA

Building on existing geolocation technologies, future swath control could save on seed, minerals, fertilizer and herbicides by reducing overlapping inputs.

while the geologists were searching for a completely different mineral. In fact, they very nearly discarded what appeared as a useless brown diamond

a mineral we have seen only previously in meteorites, and not On earth. Fortunately, as with many scientific discoveries, this accident was a happy find.

The mineral, which isn visible to the naked eye, exists deep within the Earth, at least 300 miles beneath its surface, in the transition zone.

which are minerals sometimes found in stomach antacids, to simultaneously trap a variety of contaminants including arsenic, cadmium,

the S2 RANGER X-ray spectrometer achieves superb light element performance and analytical precision for applications in cement, minerals and mining, petrochemistry, and research.

A team of researchers from Trinity college Dublin in Ireland and other institutions have figured out that they can take graphite powder (the same stuff found in pencil leads

and remaining graphite flakes must be extracted without damaging the graphene sheet but an engineer certainly could.

because its cells incorporate hard minerals like calcium into the structure of the living tissue."

Researchers have found that fish excrete prodigious amounts of a mineral, calcium carbonate, that had been thought to come almost exclusively from marine plankton such as shelled algae.

an impurity that causes the mineral to dissolve more readily and reduce the acidity of the water."

where the mineral is likely to be preserved, says Feely d

#Graphene electrode promises stretchy circuits: Nature News A transparent, flexible electrode made from graphene could see a one-atom thick honeycomb of carbon first made just five years ago replace other high-tech materials used in displays.

Nickel usually catalyses the formation of thick layers of graphite. But by using a layer of nickel less than 300 nanometres thick

#Electron beams set nanostructures aglow Put a piece of quartz under an electron microscope and it will shine an icy blue.

First noticed in the 1960s, the phenomenon, called cathodoluminescence, gave geologists an easy way to identify quartz and other minerals in rock samples.

PAUL JACKMAN/NATUREHARVESTING nodules is technically easier than mining the mineral-rich remnants of non-active hydrothermal vents on the sea floor,

Data from NASA's Galileo probe which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 show clay-like minerals on Europa's surface probably debris from meteor impacts

or low-density hydrated minerals like clays. Either answer suggests that the rock has been in substantial contact with water for instance allowing minerals to dissolve

and explaining the salty ice grains we see coming out of the surface. The team also found that the southern hemisphere has a stronger gravitational pull than its topography would suggest.

China's Yutu rover will venture a few kilometres away from its landing site to snap images take stock of minerals with onboard spectrometers and probe below the surface with radar.

According to Curiosity's onboard chemistry lab the sample is between 20 and 30 per cent smectite a clay mineral that forms in the presence of water.

The instruments also detected minerals indicating that this water was ph neutral and carried substances capable of supplying microbes with energy.

At a scientific meeting in Texas this week team members presented analyses from three of the rover's remote sensing instruments that show many types of hydrated minerals

and minerals that could act like batteries allowing electrons to flow and bring energy to any potential organisms.

The instruments showed that between 20 and 30 per cent of the dust is called a clay mineral smectite

It is based on a recent development in solar cells that makes use of a compound called perovskite specifically,

organolead halide perovskite a technology that has progressed rapidly from initial experiments to a point where its efficiency is nearly competitive with that of other types of solar cells. t went from initial demonstrations to good efficiency in less than two years,

Already, perovskite-based photovoltaic cells have achieved power-conversion efficiency of more than 19 percent, which is close to that of many commercial silicon-based solar cells.

Initial descriptions of the perovskite technology identified its use of lead, whose production from raw ores can produce toxic residues,

because the perovskite photovoltaic material takes the form of a thin film just half a micrometer thick,

As an added advantage, the production of perovskite solar cells is a relatively simple and benign process. t has the advantage of being a low-temperature process,

Old lead is as good as new Belcher believes that the recycled perovskite solar cells will be embraced by other photovoltaics researchers,

just as good for the production of perovskite solar cells as freshly produced metal. Some companies are already gearing up for commercial production of perovskite photovoltaic panels,

which could otherwise require new sources of lead. Since this could expose miners and smelters to toxic fumes

In the desert environment dust is present on a daily basis says co-author Numan Abu-Dheir of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi arabia.

#Steam from the sun A new material structure developed at MIT generates steam by soaking up the sun. The structure a layer of graphite flakes

When sunlight hits the structure surface, it creates a hotspot in the graphite, drawing water up through the material pores,

Its top layer is made from graphite that the researchers exfoliated by placing the material in a microwave.

is ust like popcorn The graphite bubbles up, forming a nest of flakes. The result is a highly porous material that can better absorb

As sunlight hits the structure, it creates a hotspot in the graphite layer, generating a pressure gradient that draws water up through the carbon foam.

As water seeps into the graphite layer, the heat concentrated in the graphite turns the water into steam.

The structure works much like a sponge that, when placed in water on a hot,

Now researchers at MIT and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi arabia have devised a robotic system that can detect leaks at a rapid pace and with high accuracy by sensing a large pressure

#Engineers design living materials Inspired by natural materials such as bone a matrix of minerals and other substances including living cells MIT engineers have coaxed bacterial cells to produce biofilms that can incorporate nonliving materials such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots.

The magnetic insulator Shi and his team used was yttrium iron garnet grown by laser molecular beam epitaxy in his lab. The researchers placed a single-layer graphene sheet on an atomically smooth layer of yttrium iron garnet.

They found that yttrium iron garnet magnetized the graphene sheet. In other words graphene simply borrows the magnetic properties from yttrium iron garnet.

Magnetic substances like iron tend to interfere with graphene's electrical conduction. The researchers avoided those substances

and chose yttrium iron garnet because they knew it worked as an electric insulator which meant that it would not disrupt graphene's electrical transport properties.

but simply placing it on the layer of yttrium iron garnet they ensured that graphene's excellent electrical transport properties remained unchanged.

They found that graphene's Hall voltage-a voltage in the perpendicular direction to the current flow-depended linearly on the magnetization of yttrium iron garnet (a phenomenon known as the anomalous Hall effect seen in magnetic materials like iron and cobalt.

#Nanoparticle network could bring fast-charging batteries (Phys. org) A new electrode design for lithium-ion batteries has been shown to potentially reduce the charging time from hours to minutes by replacing the conventional graphite electrode with a network of tin-oxide nanoparticles.

The anodes in most of today's lithium-ion batteries are made of graphite. The theoretical maximum storage capacity of graphite is limited very at 372 milliamp hours per gram hindering significant advances in battery technology said Vilas Pol an associate professor of chemical engineering at Purdue University.

The researchers have performed experiments with a porous interconnected tin-oxide based anode which has nearly twice the theoretical charging capacity of graphite.

The researchers demonstrated that the experimental anode can be charged in 30 minutes and still have a capacity of 430 milliamp hours per gram (mah g 1)

which is greater than the theoretical maximum capacity for graphite when charged slowly over 10 hours.

In a study published in the journal ACS Nano researchers showed how a coating that makes high capacity silicon electrodes more durable could lead to a replacement for lower-capacity graphite electrodes.

Thanks to its high electrical capacity potential silicon is one of the hottest things in lithium ion battery development these days Replacing the graphite electrode in rechargeable lithium batteries with silicon could increase the capacity tenfold making

#New nanocomposites for aerospace and automotive industries The Center for Research in Advanced Materials (CIMAV) has developed reinforced graphite nanoplatelets seeking to improve the performance of solar cell materials.

These polymer-based nanocomposites are reinforced with graphite nanoplatelets for use in industry. Nanocomposites are formed by two

or more phases in this case by reinforced graphite nanoplatelets. The sectors focused on the use of these nanomaterials are diverse;

graphite nanoplatelets give added value to the product as they improve its mechanical thermal and electrical properties.

the graphite nanoplatelets s

#Graphene/nanotube hybrid benefits flexible solar cells Rice university scientists have invented a novel cathode that may make cheap, flexible dye-sensitized solar cells practical.

Especially the unique properties of so-called perovskites can be exploited further: their crystal structure is influenced not by the process.

Perovskites are materials with special properties especially at their interfaces. At the interface between two nonconducting perovskites for example a conducting'path'can arise.

The magnetic properties of perovskites are unique as well. Within the group Inorganic Materials science UT scientists have gained a lot of experience with these materials:

earlier the group developed the Pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD)# for this building the materials one atomic layer at a time.

Via this mask a pattern of zinc oxide can be placed on the perovskite for example. Using PLD a sandwich of different materials can be made.

The paper'Patterning of epitaxial perovskites from micro and nano molded stencil masks'by Maarten Nijland Antony George Sean Thomas Evert Houwman Jing Xia Dave Blank Guus Rijnders Gertjan Koster

J. E. 2014) Patterning of Epitaxial Perovskites from Micro and Nano Molded Stencil Masks. Adv. Funct.

The present research focused instead on nanowires of a less-common crystalline form the hexagonal so-called wurtzite structure.

The team subjected wurtzite gallium arsenide to up to about 227000 times normal atmospheric pressure (23 gigapascals) in diamond anvil cells.

Significantly they discovered that around 207000 times normal atmospheric pressure (21 gigapascals) the wurtzite gallium arsenide nanowires underwent a structural change that induced a new phase the so-called orthorhombic one

which was not possible using the traditional exfoliation technique where layers of graphene are stripped from graphite.

and graphite electrodes used in today's commercial lithium ion batteries and in about half of those under development.

in which guest molecules or ions are inserted between the carbon layers of graphite to pull the single sheets apart.

The intercalation of graphite was achieved in 1841 but always with a strong oxidizing or reducing agent that damaged the desirable properties of the material.

One of the most widely used methods to intercalate graphite by oxidation was developed in 1999 by Nina Kovtyukhova, a research associate in Mallouk's lab. While studying other layered materials,

to open up single layers of solid boron nitride, a compound with a structure similar to graphite.

Mallouk asked her to try a similar experiment without the oxidizing agent on graphite, but aware of the extensive literature saying that the oxidizing agent was required, Kovtyukhova balked."

Ever since the discovery of graphene a single layer of carbon that can be extracted from graphite with adhesive tape scientists have been rapidly exploring the world of two-dimensional materials These materials have unique properties not seen in their bulk form.

Graphene is hidden inside graphite an ore that has not been particularly sought after in the past. But a few years ago it revealed a secret.

Professor Li has invented a cost-effective and scalable way to split graphite into microscopic graphene sheets and dissolve them in water.

First the researchers filled a Pyrex tube with graphite powder, and then placed the open-ended tube inside a slightly larger tube.

The heat causes the molten potassium to move inside the micropores between the graphite powders

so that the potassium molecules become intercalated into the graphite interlayers. The resulting potassium graphite compounds were placed then in a pyridine solution,

which causes the layers to expand away from each other to form graphene nanosheets that could later be cooled

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