Immobilization of Scandium and Other Chemical Elements in Systems with Aquatic Macrophyte

The possibility of immobilization of scandium and other chemical elements by biogenic materialsderived from an aquatic macrophyte was explored. The concentrations of scandium and some other chemicalelements were measured in the dried biomass (mortmass) of aquatic plants Myriophyllum aquaticum. In theexperiments, the mortmass was incubated in aquatic systems where some chemical elements were added to theaquatic medium. After the incubation, the concentrations of these chemical elements in the mortmass weremeasured using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), also referred to asinductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Increases in the concentrations ofscandium and some other chemical elements (Ce, In, Se, Ru, Pd, U, and Zr) were observed in the biogenic materia

Study of the Interactions between Elodea canadensis and CuO Nanoparticles

Copper is one of the key heavy metals that pollute environment and constitute a serious threat to thehealth of humans and ecosystems. Copper may enter the aquatic environment in both soluble and nanoparticleform. It was previously found in a series of studies that nanoparticles, including those of several metal oxides,exercise both negative and positive effects on the higher plants which makes necessary further research on theinteraction between metal oxide nanoparticles and plants. Interactions between aquatic plants and copper–containingnanoparticles were not suffi ciently studied. The goal of this study was to contribute to the investigation of theinteractions between CuO nanoparticles and the aquatic plant Elodea canadensis under the conditions of experimentalmicrocosms. It was found that CuO nanoparticles demonstrated some phytotoxicity to Elodea canadensis.After the incubation of Elodea canadensis in the aquatic medium contaminated with CuO nanoparticles there wasa signifi cant increase (by two orders of magnitude) of the concentration of copper in the biomass of the plants

CERN PS laser ion source development

CERN, together with ITEP and TRINITI (Russia), is developing a CO2 laser ion source. The key design parameters are: 1.4 1010 ions of Pb25+ in a pulse of 5.5 ms, with a 4-rms emittance of 0.2 10-6 rad m, working at a repetition rate of 1 Hz. This device is considered as one candidate source for LHC heavy ion operation. The status of the laser development, the experimental set-up of the source consisting of the target area and its illumination, the plasma expansion area and extraction, beam transport and ion pre-acceleration by an RFQ, will be given