manganese recovering from alkaline spent batteries by ammonium peroxodisulfate

The process of manganese removal from spent battery leaching solutions, with ammonium peroxodisulfate, prior to recovery of zinc by electrolysis is presented. The experiments were carried out according to a 2 3 full factorial design considering ammonium peroxodisulfate concentration, temperature and pH as factors investigated. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out on the precipitation yields of Mn and Zn after 30 min, 1h, 2h and 3h of reaction. Optimal conditions for obtaining Mn as MnO 2 were 20 % (NH 4 ) 2 S 2 O 8 , 90 °C and pH 6. Data from XRF and AAS during the reaction at different time are presented to analyse the kinetic behaviour of the system. The MnO 2 precipitated and solutions have been characterized by XRF and XRD. The solid samples were kept at 800 °C for 1 h to produce chemical manganese dioxide (CMD) and were characterized by cyclic voltammetry for their electrochemical activity. The overall results denoted that chemical oxidation of manganese from spent batteries leaching solutions with ammonium peroxodisulfate is a suitable method for manganese removal as MnO 2 prior zinc recovery by electrolysis, also production of a suitable product (CMD) and it could be used in a process for recycling spent batteries

Colorization and Automated Segmentation of Human T2 MR Brain Images for Characterization of Soft Tissues

Characterization of tissues like brain by using magnetic resonance (MR) images and colorization of the gray scale image has been reported in the literature, along with the advantages and drawbacks. Here, we present two independent methods; (i) a novel colorization method to underscore the variability in brain MR images, indicative of the underlying physical density of bio tissue, (ii) a segmentation method (both hard and soft segmentation) to characterize gray brain MR images. The segmented images are then transformed into color using the above-mentioned colorization method, yielding promising results for manual tracing. Our color transformation incorporates the voxel classification by matching the luminance of voxels of the source MR image and provided color image by measuring the distance between them. The segmentation method is based on single-phase clustering for 2D and 3D image segmentation with a new auto centroid selection method, which divides the image into three distinct regions (gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using prior anatomical knowledge). Results have been successfully validated on human T2-weighted (T2) brain MR images. The proposed method can be potentially applied to gray-scale images from other imaging modalities, in bringing out additional diagnostic tissue information contained in the colorized image processing approach as described

The epileptology of GNB5 encephalopathy

Pathogenic variants in GNB5 cause an autosomal recessive neurodevelopmental disorder with neonatal sinus bradycardia. Seizures or epilepsy occurred in 10 of 22 previously reported cases, including 6 children from one family. We delineate the epileptology of GNB5 encephalopathy. Our nine patients, including five new patients, were from seven families. Epileptic spasms were the most frequent seizure type, occurring in eight of nine patients, and began at a median age of 3 months (2 months to 3 years). Focal seizures preceded spasms in three children, with onset at 7 days, 11 days, and 4 months. One child presented with convulsive status epilepticus at 6 months. Three children had burst suppression on electroencephalography (EEG), three had hypsarrhythmia, and one evolved from burst suppression to hypsarrhythmia. Background slowing was present in all after age 3 years. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed cerebral atrophy in one child and cerebellar atrophy in another. All nine had abnormal development prior to seizure onset and ultimately had profound impairment without regression. Hypotonia was present in all, with contractures developing in two older patients. All individuals had biallelic pathogenic variants in GNB5, predicted by in silico tools to result in protein truncation and loss-of-function. GNB5 developmental and epileptic encephalopathy is characterized by epileptic spasms, focal seizures, and profound impairment. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2019 International League Against Epileps