Copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) thin films were deposited from homogeneous solutions of precursors and directly onto conductive films via selective thermolysis by microwave heating. Microwave energy is absorbed strongly by conductive films, which enables preferential heating to a sufficiently high temperature for the deposition of CZTS exclusively on the conductive layer without homogeneous nucl...

The ability to produce three-dimensional physical property models of the subsurface from surface geophysical data, coupled with an increasing need to explore for minerals in concealed terranes, results in geophysical inversions providing more significant information to the exploration team. We examine the role that geophysical inversion can play in an integrated mineral exploration program, and...

The achievement of half-metallicity with ferromagnetic (FM) coupling has become a key technology for the development of one-dimensional (1D) nanoribbons for spintronic applications. Unfortunately, in previous studies, such a half-metallicity always occurs upon certain external constraints. Here we, for the first time, demonstrate, via density functional theory (DFT), that the recent experimenta...

Highly toxic sulfur-containing gases have been pathogenetically implicated in ulcerative colitis. Utilizing a rat model, we studied the production and elimination of sulfur-containing gases within the unperturbed colon. The major sulfur-containing gases were hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methanethiol, and dimethyl sulfide with cecal accumulation rates of 2.6, 0.096, and 0.046 μl/min, respectively. Th...

Microparticles containing substantial amounts of radiocesium collected from the ground in Fukushima were investigated mainly by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray microanalysis with scanning TEM (STEM). Particles of around 2 μm in diameter are basically silicate glass containing Fe and Zn as transition metals, Cs, Rb and K as alkali ions, and Sn as substantial elements. These elem...

Biomining is the use of microorganisms to extract metals from sulfide and/or iron-containing ores and mineral concentrates. The iron and sulfide is microbially oxidized to produce ferric iron and sulfuric acid, and these chemicals convert the insoluble sulfides of metals such as copper, nickel and zinc to soluble metal sulfates that can be readily recovered from solution. Although gold is inert...

The mineral enargite, Cu3AsS4, is described as forming orthorhombic crystals, with the axial ratios 0.8694: 1 : 0.8308, according to Spencer. The only previous X-ray study known to us is that of de J ong1), who prepared powder photographs of enargite and of famatinite, essentially Cu3SbS4, which seem to show the two substances to be isomorphous; no attempt to determine the structure from the da...