Mineral nutrient malnutrition, particularly deficiency in zinc and iron, afflicts over 3 billion people worldwide. Biofortification of food crops is the best approach for conciliating the micronutrient deficiencies. Understanding the genetic basis of their accumulation is the preconditions for enhancing of these micronutrients. In our study, a mapping population of a set of 118 recombinant inbr...

Impurity-based, premelting-like, intergranular films (IGFs, a common type of grain boundary complexion) can form in various materials and influence sintering, creep, and microstructure development. A thermodynamic framework is presented to forecast the formation and stability of these premelting-like grain boundary complexions (a.k.a. interfacial “phases” that are thermodynamically two dimensio...

To obtain the optimal 1:1 composition of FePt alloy nanomaterials by polyol synthesis, the iron precursor (iron pentacarbonyl, Fe(CO)5) must be used in excess, because the Fe(CO)5 exists in the vapor phase at the typical temperatures used for FePt synthesis and cannot be consumed completely. Fabrication of Fe3O4 nanoparticles by consuming the excess iron precursor was an effective strategy to m...

Introduction: Bulk ureilites have near chondritic abundances of siderophile elements [1-7], showing no correlation with Fe contents (~5-16 wt.%) or mg (molar Mg/[Mg+Fe]). These observations are difficult to reconcile with any igneous model for their silicates [8]. We address this problem through detailed characterization of the metal phases in ureilites [9], and petrologic modelling [10]. Here ...

To characterise the coatings formed and to analyse element partitioning between the aqueous and solid phase, suspensions were prepared with four grain sizes of limestone and three different amounts of acidic solution from oxidized pyrite tailings. In all cases, red coatings with three different layers covered the grain surface, sealing off the acidic solution. The inner layer was composed mainl...

This paper describes the development and application of a novel method for the measurement of grain boundary electrical conductivity of rock at high temperature and pressure. In this method, the metal electrodes, the corresponding metal shielding case, and the sleeves are altered in order to appropriately adjust and monitor the oxygen fugacity in a sample cavity in a high-pressure apparatus. As...

An NbC-Fe composite powder was synthesized from an Nb₂O₅/Fe/C mixture by electrochemical reduction and subsequent carbonization in molten CaCl₂-NaCl. The composite has a core-shell structure, in which NbC acts as the cores distributing in the Fe matrix. A strong bonding between NbC and Fe is benefit from the core-shell structure. The sintering and electrochemical reduction processes were invest...

Impurities are detrimental to silicon-based solar cells. A deeper understanding of their evolution, microscopic distributions, and oxidation states throughout the refining processes may enable the discovery of novel refining techniques. Using synchrotron-based microprobe techniques and bulk chemical analyses, we investigate Fe, Ti, and Ca starting from siliconand carbon bearing raw feedstock ma...

Electrical steels are undoubtedly the most important soft magnetic materials in use today. Applications vary in quantities from the few ounces used in small relays or pulse transformers to tons used in generators, motors, and transformers. There are two principal types of electrical steels: grain oriented and non-oriented steels. The grain oriented (GO) electrotechnical steel sheets are widely ...

Introduction: Most presolar SiC grains (~93%) have Si isotopic ratios that fall along the so-called mainstream correlation line of 1.37 on a Si three isotope plot [1]. Z grains, which constitute only ~1% of the total presolar SiC population, plot on the 30 Si-rich side of this line and typically have negative δ 29 Si/ 28 Si values, suggesting that they originated in asymptotic giant branch star...