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During the later stages of hard-rock mining in Cornwall, UK, widespread processing and refining of arsenic in purpose-built calciners resulted in severe, localized contamination of soils with arsenic. Several physical-chemical techniques were applied to characterize arsenic in a calciner residue dump: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), sequential extraction combined with hyphenated speciation methods, and X-ray absorption spectroscopic (XAS) methods such as XANES (X-ray absorption near-edge structure) and EXAFS (extended X-ray absorption fine structure). Arsenic was predominantly present in pentavalent form, bound to amorphous or poorly-crystalline hydrous oxides of Fe (probably alpha-hematite). A small amount of a non-classified crystalline iron arsenate phase was found, viz. Fe2(As(AsO4)3). There was also evidence for the presence of some arsenate bound to quartz (alpha-SiO2). The overall results make us believe that the normally assumed relative safety, from a mobility point of view, is questionable since only a small fraction of arsenic is found in a crystalline iron arsenate form.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2005.06.003 | DOI Listing |
J Org Chem
September 2025
Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, 8 St. Kliment Ohridski blvd, Sofia 1756, Bulgaria.
Herein, a novel class of azo photoswitches based on a phthalimide with an azo bond to the imide ring is presented, exhibiting reversible isomerization under a broad range of visible light irradiation from 405 to 530 nm. Structural variations with heteroaryl or aryl segments attached to the 3-phthalylazo unit exhibit distinct spectral features, such as red-shifted absorption, well-separated absorption bands, and tunable stability of the metastable isomer, ranging from seconds to days. They differ drastically in the half-life of -isomer stability, ranging from several seconds (-methylpyrrole) to days (-methylimidazole).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant Cell Physiol
September 2025
Biostructural Mechanism Laboratory, RIKEN SPring-8 Center, 1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo, Hyogo 679-5148, Japan.
Phycobilisome (PBS) is a water-soluble light-harvesting supercomplex found in cyanobacteria, glaucophytes, and rhodophytes. PBS interacts with photosynthetic reaction centers, specifically photosystems II and I (PSII and PSI), embedded in the thylakoid membrane. It is widely accepted that PBS predominantly associates with PSII, which functions as the initial complex in the linear electron transport chain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biol Macromol
September 2025
College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China; Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China. Electronic address:
In this study, a novel bleaching method for ramie cellulose fibers with low oxidative damage was developed by utilizing the properties of sodium percarbonate contained in tea saponin, which slowly releases hydrogen peroxide in the catalytic oxidation system of N-hydroxyphthalimide (NHPI). First, the bleaching process was optimized using response surface design, followed by comparison and characterization of fiber properties prepared under different bleaching systems. Finally, the energy consumption, water consumption, and toxicity of the NHPI/tea saponin system were evaluated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Colloid Interface Sci
September 2025
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. Electronic address:
The utilization of synergistic multivalent active sites holds potential in addressing the inherent sluggish kinetics of electrocatalytic reactions. Herein, we prepared au uNPs/Ni-NDC (NDC = 1,4-Naphthalenedicarboxylic acid) and leveraged the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect to drive hot electron transfer from au nanoparticles to the Ni substrate, thereby generating multivalent active sites to boost the urea oxidation reaction (UOR). Under exciting light, au uNPs/Ni-NDC exhibited a twofold increase in UOR current accompanied by a significant negative shift in onset potential.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
September 2025
State Key Laboratory of Chemistry for NBC Hazards Protection, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, P. R. China.
The activation of methane and other gaseous hydrocarbons at low temperature remains a substantial challenge for the chemistry community. Here, we report an anaerobic photosystem based on crystalline borocarbonitride (BCN) supported Fe-O nanoclusters, which can selectively functionalize C-H bonds of methane, ethane, and higher alkanes to value-added organic chemicals at 12 °C. Scanning transmission electron microscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy corroborated the ultrafine FeOOH and FeO species in Fe-O clusters, which enhanced the interfacial charge transfer/separation of BCN as well as the chemisorption of methane.
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