Sustainable Production of Biofuels and Biochemicals via Electro-Fermentation Technology.

The energy crisis and climate change are two of the most concerning issues for human beings nowadays. For that reason, the scientific community is focused on the search for alternative biofuels to conventional fossil fuels as well as the development of sustainable processes to develop a circular economy. Bioelectrochemical processes have been demonstrated to be useful for producing bioenergy and value-added products from several types of waste.

A comparison of methods for the estimation of the enthalpy of formation of rare earth compounds.

Rare earth elements are helping drive the global transition towards a greener economy. However, the way in which they are produced is far from being considered green. One of the major obstacles to developing greener production methods and the design of novel processes and materials involving rare earth elements is the limited thermodynamic data available.

A novel reductive alkali roasting of chromite ores for carcinogen-free Cr-ion extraction of chromium oxide (CrO) - A clean route to chromium product manufacturing!

A novel reduction reaction for extracting CrO from chromite ores is demonstrated by excluding the formation of carcinogenic chromate (Cr) intermediates. We have investigated in detail the underpinning high-temperature reduction reaction: FeCrO+NaCO+2[C]=[Fe]+NaCrO+3CO, which defines the process chemistry for the formation of sodium chromite (NaCrO) as an intermediate product for CrO extraction. After high-temperature reduction, the magnetic separation, aqueous and acid leaching of reaction products yielded 81 wt% and 70 wt% pure CrO from low (∼4 wt%) and high (>8 wt%) silica-containing chromite ores, respectively.

Nanoparticle corona artefacts derived from specimen preparation of particle suspensions.

Progress in the implementation of nanoparticles for therapeutic applications will accelerate with an improved understanding of the interface between nanoparticle surfaces and the media they are dispersed in. We examine this interface by analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy and show that incorrect specimen preparation or analysis can induce an artefactual, nanoscale, calcium phosphate-rich, amorphous coating on nanoparticles dispersed in cell culture media. We report that this ionic coating can be induced on five different types of nanoparticles (Au, BaTiO, ZnO, TiO and FeO) when specimen preparation causes a significant rise in pH above physiological levels.

Towards sustainable processing of columbite group minerals: elucidating the relation between dielectric properties and physico-chemical transformations in the mineral phase.

Current methodologies for the extraction of tantalum and niobium pose a serious threat to human beings and the environment due to the use of hydrofluoric acid (HF). Niobium and tantalum metal powders and pentoxides are widely used for energy efficient devices and components. However, the current processing methods for niobium and tantalum metals and oxides are energy inefficient.