Coal fly ash and the circular economy

Coal fly ash (CFA) can be regarded as a unique material with the potential to be a showcase waste to illustrate the concept of the circular economy. The application of a processing scheme to power station CFA allows the exploitation of multiple components of the product. The CFA can be separated into low density, carbon, and magnetic concentrates as well as the residual fly ashes. This work contributes to a growing body of research that suggests multi component utilisation of CFA is technologically, environmentally, and economically imperative. The thesis explores five separate but related themes that attempt to increase the exploitation of CFA. In the first it is shown that CFA products that are derived from a commercial scale processing scheme exhibit differences in bulk chemistry, mineralogy, and particle size. In the second theme, a study of the rheology of CFA suspensions was conducted. The third aspect of the thesis explores the current method of recovering cenospheres from bulk CFA. The fourth part of the thesis covers the separation of carbon from CFA using an environmentally benign waste material such as vegetable oil. Finally, a silver activated titanium dioxide floating photocatalyst has been manufactured using cenospheres as an industrially derived substrate

FreeStyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring system for people with type 1 diabetes in the UK: a budget impact analysis

INTRODUCTION: This study aims to estimate the budget impact of increased uptake of the FreeStyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring system in people with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) in the UK. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A budget impact model was developed, applying real-world data collected in the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists (ABCD) FreeStyle Libre Nationwide Audit. Costs of diabetes glucose monitoring in a T1DM population (n=1790) using self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) or the FreeStyle Libre system were compared with a scenario with increased use of the FreeStyle Libre system. RESULTS: The ABCD audit demonstrates FreeStyle Libre system use reduces diabetes-related resource utilization. The cost analysis found that higher acquisition costs are offset by healthcare costs avoided (difference £168 per patient per year (PPPY)). Total costs were £1116 PPPY with FreeStyle Libre system compared with £948 PPPY with SMBG. In an average-sized UK local health economy, increasing FreeStyle Libre system uptake from 30% to 50% increased costs by 3.4% (£1 787 345-£1 847 618) and when increased to 70% increased by a further 3.3%. CONCLUSION: Increased uptake of the FreeStyle Libre system in the T1DM population marginally increases the cost to UK health economies and offers many system benefits

An investigation into six coal fly ashes from the United Kingdom and Poland to evaluate rare earth element content

AbstractRare earth elements have been identified by the European Commission as a critical raw material. Six European coal fly ashes have been investigated for their rare earth element content. A coal fly ash from the UK has levels of rare earth element that are approaching that which might be commercially viable to exploit. After classification there was found to be a slight enrichment in the smaller non-magnetic inorganic content of the coal fly ash

Enriched biodiversity data as a resource and service

Background: Recent years have seen a surge in projects that produce large volumes of structured, machine-readable biodiversity data. To make these data amenable to processing by generic, open source “data enrichment” workflows, they are increasingly being represented in a variety of standards-compliant interchange formats. Here, we report on an initiative in which software developers and taxonomists came together to address the challenges and highlight the opportunities in the enrichment of such biodiversity data by engaging in intensive, collaborative software development: The Biodiversity Data Enrichment Hackathon. Results: The hackathon brought together 37 participants (including developers and taxonomists, i.e. scientific professionals that gather, identify, name and classify species) from 10 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. The participants brought expertise in processing structured data, text mining, development of ontologies, digital identification keys, geographic information systems, niche modeling, natural language processing, provenance annotation, semantic integration, taxonomic name resolution, web service interfaces, workflow tools and visualisation. Most use cases and exemplar data were provided by taxonomists. One goal of the meeting was to facilitate re-use and enhancement of biodiversity knowledge by a broad range of stakeholders, such as taxonomists, systematists, ecologists, niche modelers, informaticians and ontologists. The suggested use cases resulted in nine breakout groups addressing three main themes: i) mobilising heritage biodiversity knowledge; ii) formalising and linking concepts; and iii) addressing interoperability between service platforms. Another goal was to further foster a community of experts in biodiversity informatics and to build human links between research projects and institutions, in response to recent calls to further such integration in this research domain. Conclusions: Beyond deriving prototype solutions for each use case, areas of inadequacy were discussed and are being pursued further. It was striking how many possible applications for biodiversity data there were and how quickly solutions could be put together when the normal constraints to collaboration were broken down for a week. Conversely, mobilising biodiversity knowledge from their silos in heritage literature and natural history collections will continue to require formalisation of the concepts (and the links between them) that define the research domain, as well as increased interoperability between the software platforms that operate on these concepts

Maternal Feeding Practices Become More Controlling After and Not Before Excessive Rates of Weight Gain

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93708/1/oby.2009.54.pd

Indian Coal Ash: A Potential Alternative Resource for Rare Earth Metals (REMs)

Huge scarcity of rare earth metals (REMs) globally, lack of good natural resources, and generation of tremendous coal ash containing REMs of power plant attracted the researchers to work in this area. The analysis of geologically distributed heterogeneous coal samples at CSIR-NML, India reports the presence of 0.5–1.5 kg/Ton REMs in particular seam of coal at Indian eastern part. In this regard, systematic leaching studies were made to recover REMs from Indian coal ash using hydrometallurgical technique. Maximum dissolution of REMs from coal ash take place using HCl of concentration ranging between 2 and 6 M at elevated temperature. From the obtained leach liquor, more than 90% REMs were recovered using oxalate precipitation. The process developed has tremendous potential to be commercialized after feasibility studies