New Functionalized Magnetic Materials for As⁵⁺ Removal: Adsorbent Regeneration and Reuse

The presence of arsenic in natural water is one of the most important pollution problems worldwide. Functionalized magnetic silica/magnetite nanoparticles (M3) have been reported as effective materials for arsenate adsorption [Saiz et al., 2014]. Because the process economy might be limited by the solid reuse, this work aims at the analysis of the regeneration and reusability of arsenate loaded M3 materials. The influence on the desorption and readsorption efficacies of the type and concentration of the regeneration agent, HCl or NaOH, and the sorbent refunctionalization steps (F1 is protonation of amino groups, F2 is coordination of Fe³⁺) is analyzed. Desorption with HCl is concentration dependent with maximum efficacies at 0.25 mol L^–1. Solutions of NaOH 10^–3 mol L^–1 provided the best desorption performance; however, the regeneration of the solid needed of two stages of refunctionalization (F1 and F2). Furthermore, regenerated materials under alkaline conditions reported adsorption yields of arsenic around 90%

Propylene and Propane Solubility in Imidazolium, Pyridinium, and Tetralkylammonium Based Ionic Liquids Containing a Silver Salt

The gas solubility of propane and propylene in seven ionic liquids, 1-ethyl-3-methyl­imidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMImBF₄), 1-hexyl-3-methyl­imidazolium tetrafluoroborate (HMImBF₄), 1-octyl-3-methyl­imidazolium tetrafluoroborate (OMImBF₄), 3-methyl­imidazolium nitrate (BMImNO₃), 1-butyl-3-methyl­imidazolium bis­(trifluoro­methyl­sulfonyl­imide) (BMImTf₂N), methyl­trioctyl­ammonium bis­(trifluoro­methyl­sulfonyl­imide) (MOOONTf₂N), and butyl­trimethyl­ammonium bis­(trifluoro­methyl­sulfonyl­imide) (BMMMN Tf₂N), is reported. The equilibrium isotherms of both pure gases were measured in the pure ionic liquids and in presence of a silver salt containing the same anion of the ionic liquid in a range of concentration of (0 to 0.77) mol·kg_IL^–1 at temperatures between (288 and 308) K and pressures ranging from (0 to 700) kPa. Henry’s law constant values for physical solubility as well as the characteristic parameters for chemical solubility such as chemical equilibrium constants and enthalpies of the chemical reactions between silver cations and propylene are reported. Based upon the experimental results, ionic liquids based on imidazolium cations with less and shorter alkyl substituents improve the selective separation of propylene from these mixtures. Regarding to the structure of the anion it was gathered that ionic liquids with the BF₄^– anion, combined with the AgBF₄ silver salt, provided the best results in terms of olefin capacity and selectivity. In this article we provide valuable data that evidence that the separation of propane/propylene gas mixtures by reactive absorption could represent an efficient alternative to the traditional separation process based on cryogenic distillation and serve for the new process design

The Relevance of Life Cycle Assessment Tools in the Development of Emerging Decarbonization Technologies

The development of emerging decarbonization technologies requires advanced tools for decision-making that incorporate the environmental perspective from the early design. Today, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the preferred tool to promote sustainability in the technology development, identifying environmental challenges and opportunities and defining the final implementation pathways. So far, most environmental studies related to decarbonization emerging solutions are still limited to midpoint metrics, mainly the carbon footprint, with global sustainability implications being relatively unexplored. In this sense, the Planetary Boundaries (PBs) have been recently proposed to identify the distance to the ideal reference state. Hence, PB-LCA methodology can be currently applied to transform the resource use and emissions to changes in the values of PB control variables. This study shows a complete picture of the LCA’s role in developing emerging technologies. For this purpose, a case study based on the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to formic acid is used to show the possibilities of LCA approaches highlighting the potential pitfalls when going beyond greenhouse gas emission reduction and obtaining the absolute sustainability level in terms of four PBs

Additional file 3: of Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in Andalusian families: a genetic population study

Table S3. Breast cancer tumour phenotypes according to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutated cases. (DOC 14 kb

Additional file 4: of Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in Andalusian families: a genetic population study

Table S4. BRCA1 pathological germline mutations according to selection criteria and clinical characteristics. (DOC 104 kb

Additional file 5: of Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in Andalusian families: a genetic population study

Table S5. BRCA2 pathological germline mutations according to selection criteria and clinical characteristics. (DOC 140 kb

Additional file 2: of Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer in Andalusian families: a genetic population study

Table S2. Frequency of primary tumours in BRCA mutated families. (DOC 27 kb

Revealing the Charge Transport Mechanism in Polymerized Ionic Liquids: Insight from High Pressure Conductivity Studies

Polymerized ionic liquids (polyILs), composed mostly of organic ions covalently bonded to the polymer backbone and free counterions, are considered as ideal electrolytes for various electrochemical devices, including fuel cells, supercapacitors, and batteries. Despite large structural diversity of these systems, all of them reveal a universal but poorly understood feature: a charge transport faster than the segmental dynamics. To address this issue, we studied three novel polymer electrolyte membranes for fuel cells as well as four single-ion conductors, including highly conductive siloxane-based polyIL. Our ambient and high pressure studies revealed fundamental differences in the conducting properties of the examined systems. We demonstrate that the proposed methodology is a powerful tool to identify the charge transport mechanism in polyILs in general and thereby contribute to unraveling the microscopic nature of the decoupling phenomenon in these materials