A novel halophilic and metal-reducing bacterium, Orenia metallireducens strain Z6, was isolated from briny groundwater extracted from a 2.02 km-deep borehole in the Illinois Basin, IL. This organism shared 96% 16S rRNA gene similarity with Orenia marismortui but demonstrated physiological properties previously unknown for this genus. In addition to exhibiting a fermentative metabolism typical o...

Mixed oxides with large surface area and high thermal stability can be obtained by thermal treatment of the layered double hydroxides (LDH). Mg–Al–Fe mixed oxide samples with varying Mg/Al ratio and 5 mol.% of Fe were prepared in this way and the iron oxidation state (Feox) in these compounds was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), using a calibration based on the relation of Feo...

Xenon, which is quite inert under ambient conditions, may become reactive under pressure. The possibility of the formation of stable xenon oxides and silicates in the interior of the Earth could explain the atmospheric missing xenon paradox. Using an ab initio evolutionary algorithm, we predict the existence of thermodynamically stable Xe-O compounds at high pressures (XeO, XeO(2) and XeO(3) be...

Large-scale high-energy batteries with electrode materials made from the Earth-abundant elements are needed to achieve sustainable energy development. On the basis of material abundance, rechargeable sodium batteries with iron- and manganese-based positive electrode materials are the ideal candidates for large-scale batteries. In this review, iron- and manganese-based electrode materials, oxide...

Mild (unalloyed) steel electrodes were incubated in phosphate-buffered cultures of aerobic, biofilm-forming Rhodococcus sp. strain C125 and Pseudomonas putida mt2. A resulting surface reaction leading to the formation of a corrosion-inhibiting vivianite layer was accompanied by a characteristic electrochemical potential (E) curve. First, E increased slightly due to the interaction of phosphate ...

An investigation of the friction and sliding wear of gray cast iron against chromium plated cast irons was carried out on a newly constructed reciprocating friction and wear tester. The tests were the first to be done on the test rig under dry conditions and at the speed of 170 cm/min, and variable loads of 20-260 N for a duration of 15 min. to 3 hours. The gray cast iron surfaces worn by a pro...

Black particles, collected by filtration (1.2~pm pore size) from the anoxic waters of a soft-water lake, were examined by a scanning proton microprobe which permitted quantitative elemental analysis by proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and Rutherford backscattering (RBS). There was a uniform distribution of sulfur across the filter, but Fe, and to a lesser extent, Mn, was localized in -5-pm-...

The effects of various geochemical processes on arsenic enrichment in a high-arsenic aquifer at Jianghan Plain in Central China were investigated using multivariate models developed from combined adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and multiple linear regression (MLR). The results indicated that the optimum variable group for the AFNIS model consisted of bicarbonate, ammonium, phospho...

OBJECTIVE Our goal was to evaluate the decreased sensitivity of RARE-derived pulse sequences to susceptibility effects. MATERIALS AND METHODS A variety of RARE-derived T2-weighted fast SE echo (FSE) sequences with echo trains from 6 to 16 were compared with conventional SE (CSE) sequences by means of MRI in phantoms (iron oxides), volunteers (n = 10), and patients (n = 13) with old hemorrhagi...

A molecular understanding of the formation of solid phases from solution would be beneficial for various scientific fields. However, nucleation pathways are still not fully understood, whereby the case of iron (oxyhydr)oxides poses a prime example. We show that in the prenucleation regime, thermodynamically stable solute species up to a few nanometers in size are observed, which meet the defini...