Most ice in nature forms because of impurities which boost the exceedingly low nucleation rate of pure supercooled water. However, the microscopic details of ice nucleation on these substances remain largely unknown. Here, we have unraveled the molecular mechanism and the kinetics of ice formation on kaolinite, a clay mineral playing a key role in climate science. We find that the formation of ...

Polymer-clay nanocomposites exhibit much improved mechanical, physical, and chemical properties compared to the pure polymer. The interaction of polymer and organically modified silicates is mainly influenced by the surfactant layer in the system. To investigate the structure and dynamics of this surfactant layer, various electron paramagnetic spectroscopy (EPR) techniques were applied. Continu...

* Corresponding author Abstract – Land degradation processes in the subtropical Thicket Biome in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, are observed and monitored. As a result, a significant loss of soil quality on such sites has been recorded. This study focuses on the determination of fundamental soil parameters like organic carbon, iron, and clay in order to assess ecosystem degradation. T...

The contribution of free iron oxides to positive and negative charge distribution has been studied on soils and synthetic kaolinite-iron oxide complexes over a wide range ofpH values. The charge on the iron oxides is pH-dependent, being positive at low and negative at high pH values, respectively, and accounts for a considerable proportion of the pHdependent negative charge in soils. Iron oxide...

Foundries employ green sand molds, which contain coal, silica sand, clay, water, and core binders. This represents one of the largest non-combustion users of coal. When the coal experiences high temperature during the metal casting process, it undergoes pyrolysis reactions and can generate significant amounts of volatile organic compounds. Some of the compounds are released as hazardous air pol...

The toxicity of lead (Pb) to fungi in pure culture was influenced by several abiotic factors: pH, inorganic anions, clay minerals, and particulate (humic acid) and soluble organic matter. The toxicity of Pb was potentiated under acidic conditions (pH 5 and 6), and phosphate or carbonate anions reduced the toxicity, apparently as a result of the formation of sparingly soluble Pb salts. Clay mine...

S. Clay Isom, John R. Stevens, Rongfeng Li, William G. Spollen, Lindsay Cox, Lee D. Spate, Clifton N. Murphy, and Randall S. Prather Animal Dairy & Veterinary Sciences Department, Utah State University, Logan, Utah; Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Utah State University, Logan, Utah; Division of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri; and Informatics Research Core ...

Delta-oriented programming (DOP) is a modular approach for implementing software product lines. Delta modules generalize feature modules by allowing removal of functionality. However, DOP requires to select one particular product as core product from which all products are generated. In this paper, we propose pure deltaoriented programming (Pure DOP) that is a conceptual simplification of tradi...