The Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Phosphate Rock and Phosphate Mining Waste Products Using A Novel Water-Insoluble Adsorption Polymer

The rare earth elements (REE) or rare earth metals are vital components in many modern electronics and are critical to the advances in several high technology fields, including green energy. While numerous procedures to extract and recover rare earth elements from phosphate waste products have been reported, none have seen widespread commercial acceptance due to various limitations, such as high cost and low efficiency, and the inability to economically extend the technology to large-scale operations. One way to achieve a commercially viable separation scheme is to employ a material that will economically and selectively bind various REEs in the presence of potential interfering ions, such as sodium, calcium, and silicon. In this study, the extraction and recovery of rare earth elements and phosphorus from phosphate rock and three phosphate fertilizer waste by-products, phosphogypsum, amine tailings, and waste clay, using 2.5% nitric acid and a novel water-insoluble adsorption polymer, poly (maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) sodium salt, are examined. Overall extraction and recovery yields were between 80% for gadolinium and 8% for praseodymium from amine tailings, between 70% for terbium and 7% for praseodymium from phosphogypsum, between 56% for scandium and 15% for praseodymium from phosphate rock, and between 77% for samarium and 31% for praseodymium from waste clay. Average REE extraction and recovery yields were 50% to 60%. Poly (maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) sodium salt effectively bound 100% of the rare earth elements extracted from the solids. Phosphorus was not chelated by the polymer and was isolated from the extract solution in yields of 16% to 34%. These results suggest that this process may be an efficient means of recovering rare earth elements and phosphorus from phosphate mining waste products

The Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Phosphate Rock and Phosphate Mining Waste Products Using A Novel Water-Insoluble Adsorption Polymer

The rare earth elements (REE) or rare earth metals are vital components in many modern electronics and are critical to the advances in several high technology fields, including green energy. While numerous procedures to extract and recover rare earth elements from phosphate waste products have been reported, none have seen widespread commercial acceptance due to various limitations, such as high cost and low efficiency, and the inability to economically extend the technology to large-scale operations. One way to achieve a commercially viable separation scheme is to employ a material that will economically and selectively bind various REEs in the presence of potential interfering ions, such as sodium, calcium, and silicon. In this study, the extraction and recovery of rare earth elements and phosphorus from phosphate rock and three phosphate fertilizer waste by-products, phosphogypsum, amine tailings, and waste clay, using 2.5% nitric acid and a novel water-insoluble adsorption polymer, poly (maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) sodium salt, are examined. Overall extraction and recovery yields were between 80% for gadolinium and 8% for praseodymium from amine tailings, between 70% for terbium and 7% for praseodymium from phosphogypsum, between 56% for scandium and 15% for praseodymium from phosphate rock, and between 77% for samarium and 31% for praseodymium from waste clay. Average REE extraction and recovery yields were 50% to 60%. Poly (maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene) sodium salt effectively bound 100% of the rare earth elements extracted from the solids. Phosphorus was not chelated by the polymer and was isolated from the extract solution in yields of 16% to 34%. These results suggest that this process may be an efficient means of recovering rare earth elements and phosphorus from phosphate mining waste products

Acquisition of land in flood risk informal setlements in DAR ES SALAAM: Choices and Compromises

Context and background               Residing in areas of flood risk informal settlements is more or less normal among low-income households in most cities of the developing countries. While living in such settlements present challenge to quality of life, many among the urban poor offer these areas.Goal and objectives:This paper analyses factors that drive urban residents to acquire land and build houses in flood prone areas. Msasani Bonde la Mpunga in the city of Dar es Salaam was selected as a case study area.Methodology:Data were collected using household questionnaires, key informant interviews, focus group discussion (FGD) and field observations.Reasons for opting land in marginal areas including flood prone sites include; proximity to workplaces, easy and cheap land access, convenient access to social services, high Proximity to low rental prices, and connections to neighbours and friends. Other reasons include; stringent procedures such as urban planning and house construction standards to acquire planned plots, poverty and little awareness about flood risks areas.Results:Whilst the findings, reveal that home builders’ decisions are shaped by multiple factors, the paper calls for rethinking the strategies and opportunities for housing land delivery for low-income households in urban areas.Key words-Risk, flood risk, informal settlements, Land acquisition, residence, risky decisions

Uplift of Ionospheric Oxygen Ions During Extreme Magnetic Storms

Research reported earlier in literature was conducted relating to estimation of the ionospheric electrical field, which may have occurred during the September 1859 Carrington geomagnetic storm event, with regard to modern-day consequences. In this research, the NRL SAMI2 ionospheric code has been modified and applied the estimated electric field to the dayside ionosphere. The modeling was done at 15-minute time increments to track the general ionospheric changes. Although it has been known that magnetospheric electric fields get down into the ionosphere, it has been only in the last ten years that scientists have discovered that intense magnetic storm electric fields do also. On the dayside, these dawn-to-dusk directed electric fields lift the plasma (electrons and ions) up to higher altitudes and latitudes. As plasma is removed from lower altitudes, solar UV creates new plasma, so the total plasma in the ionosphere is increased several-fold. Thus, this complex process creates super-dense plasmas at high altitudes (from 700 to 1,000 km and higher)

Recalling and Updating Research on Diamagnetic Cavities: Experiments, Theory, Simulations

In the decade from the mid 80's to the mid 90's there was considerable interest in the generation of diamagnetic cavities produced by the sub-Alfvenic expansion of heavy ions across a background magnetic field. Examples included the AMPTE and CRRES barium releases in the magnetotail and magnetosphere as well as laser experiments at various laboratories in the United States and the Soviet Union. In all of these experiments field-aligned striations and other small-scale structures were produced as the cavities formed. Local and non-local linear theory as well as full particle (PIC), hybrid, and Hall-MHD simulations (mostly 2-D) were developed and used to understand at least qualitatively the features of these experiments. Much of this review is a summary of this work, with the addition of some new 3-D PIC and Hall-MHD simulations that clarify old issues associated with the origin and evolution of cavities and their surface features. In the last part of this review we discuss recent extensions of the earlier efforts: new space observations of cavity-like structures as well as new laboratory experiments and calculations with greatly improved diagnostics of cavities formed by expansions of laser-produced ions at super-Alfvenic speeds both across and along the background magnetic field

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

Recent advances in space-based heliospheric observations, laboratory experimentation, and plasma simulation codes are creating an exciting new cross-disciplinary opportunity for understanding fast energy release and transport mechanisms in heliophysics and laboratory plasma dynamics, which had not been previously accessible. This article provides an overview of some new observational, experimental, and computational assets, and discusses current and near-term activities towards exploitation of synergies involving those assets. This overview does not claim to be comprehensive, but instead covers mainly activities closely associated with the authors’ interests and reearch. Heliospheric observations reviewed include the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission, the first instrument to provide remote sensing imagery observations with spatial continuity extending from the Sun to the Earth, and the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on the Japanese Hinode spacecraft that is measuring spectroscopically physical parameters of the solar atmosphere towards obtaining plasma temperatures, densities, and mass motions. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the upcoming Solar Orbiter with the Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) on-board will also be discussed. Laboratory plasma experiments surveyed include the line-tied magnetic reconnection experiments at University of Wisconsin (relevant to coronal heating magnetic flux tube observations and simulations), and a dynamo facility under construction there; the Space Plasma Simulation Chamber at the Naval Research Laboratory that currently produces plasmas scalable to ionospheric and magnetospheric conditions and in the future also will be suited to study the physics of the solar corona; the Versatile Toroidal Facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that provides direct experimental observation of reconnection dynamics; and the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment, which provides well-diagnosed data on three-dimensional (3D) null-point magnetic reconnection that is also applicable to solar active regions embedded in pre-existing coronal fields. New computer capabilities highlighted include: HYPERION, a fully compressible 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code with radiation transport and thermal conduction; ORBIT-RF, a 4D Monte-Carlo code for the study of wave interactions with fast ions embedded in background MHD plasmas; the 3D implicit multi-fluid MHD spectral element code, HiFi; and, the 3D Hall MHD code VooDoo. Research synergies for these new tools are primarily in the areas of magnetic reconnection, plasma charged particle acceleration, plasma wave propagation and turbulence in a diverging magnetic field, plasma atomic processes, and magnetic dynamo behavior.United States. Office of Naval ResearchNaval Research Laboratory (U.S.

Validation of Ionospheric Specifications During Geomagnetic Storms: TEC and foF2 During the 2013 March Storm Event

To address challenges of assessing space weather modeling capabilities, the CommunityCoordinated Modeling Center is leading a newly establishedInternational Forum for Space WeatherModeling Capabilities Assessment. This paper presents preliminary results of validation of modeled foF2 (F2 layer critical frequency) and TEC (total electron content) during the first selected 2013 March storm event (17 March 2013). In this study, we used eight ionospheric models ranging from empirical to physics-based, coupled ionosphere-thermosphere and data assimilation models. The quantities we considered are TEC and foF2 changes and percentage changes compared to quiet time background, and the maximum and minimum percentage changes. In addition, we considered normalized percentage changes of TEC. We compared the modeled quantities with ground-based observations of vertical Global Navigation SatelliteSystem TEC (provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory) and foF2 data (provided by Global Ionospheric Radio Observatory) at the 12 locations selected in middle latitudes of the American and European-African longitude sectors. To quantitatively evaluate the models’ performance, we calculated skill scores including correlation coefficient, root-mean square error (RMSE), ratio of the modeled to observed maximum percentage changes (yield), and timing error. Our study indicates that average RMSEs of foF2range from about 1 MHz to 1.5 MHz. The average RMSEs of TEC are between ~5 and ~10 TECU (1 TEC Unit= 1016el/m2). dfoF2[%] RMSEs are between 15% and 25%, which is smaller than RMSE of dTEC[%] ranging from30% to 60%. The performance of the models varies with the location and metrics considered

SAMI3 data in netCDF format (2019-Mar-31)

SAMI3 (Sami3 is Also a Model of the Ionosphere) is a seamless, three-dimensional, physics-based model of the ionosphere (Huba et al, 2008). It is based on SAMI2, a two-dimensional model of the ionosphere (Huba et al., 2000). SAMI3 models the plasma and chemical evolution of seven ion species (H⁺, He⁺, N⁺, O⁺, N⁺₂, NO⁺ and O⁺₂). The temperature equation is solved for three ion species (H⁺, He⁺ and O⁺) and for the electrons. Ion inertia is included in the ion momentum equation for motion along the geomagnetic field. This is important in modeling the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere where the plasma becomes collisionless. SAMI3 includes 21 chemical reactions and radiative recombination, and uses a nonorthogonal, nonuniform, fixed grid for the magnetic latitude range +/- 89 degrees.. Drivers Neutral composition, temperature, and winds: NRLMSISE00 (Picone et al., 2002) and HWM14 (Drob et al., 2015). Solar radiation: Flare Irradiance Spectral Model version 2 (FISM v2) Magnetic field: Richmond apex model [Richmond, 1995]. Neutral wind dynamo electric field: Determined from the solution of a 2D potential equation [Huba et at., 2008]. For the SAMI3/Weimer configuration: High latitude electric field: calculated from the empirical Weimer model for the potential. For the SAMI3/AMPERE configuration: High latitude electric field: calculated using the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling solver (MIX) developed by Merkin and Lyon (2010). The inputs to MIX are SAMI3's internal conductances, plus field-aligned current observations from Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE), derived from the 66+ satellite Iridium NEXT constellation's engineering magnetometer data. This potential calculation is described in Chartier et al (2022). For ease of use, SAMI3 output is remapped to a regular grid using the Earth System Modeling Framework by Hill et al (2004

SAMI3 data in netCDF format (2019-Mar-30)

SAMI3 (Sami3 is Also a Model of the Ionosphere) is a seamless, three-dimensional, physics-based model of the ionosphere (Huba et al, 2008). It is based on SAMI2, a two-dimensional model of the ionosphere (Huba et al., 2000). SAMI3 models the plasma and chemical evolution of seven ion species (H⁺, He⁺, N⁺, O⁺, N⁺₂, NO⁺ and O⁺₂). The temperature equation is solved for three ion species (H⁺, He⁺ and O⁺) and for the electrons. Ion inertia is included in the ion momentum equation for motion along the geomagnetic field. This is important in modeling the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere where the plasma becomes collisionless. SAMI3 includes 21 chemical reactions and radiative recombination, and uses a nonorthogonal, nonuniform, fixed grid for the magnetic latitude range +/- 89 degrees.. Drivers Neutral composition, temperature, and winds: NRLMSISE00 (Picone et al., 2002) and HWM14 (Drob et al., 2015). Solar radiation: Flare Irradiance Spectral Model version 2 (FISM v2) Magnetic field: Richmond apex model [Richmond, 1995]. Neutral wind dynamo electric field: Determined from the solution of a 2D potential equation [Huba et at., 2008]. For the SAMI3/Weimer configuration: High latitude electric field: calculated from the empirical Weimer model for the potential. For the SAMI3/AMPERE configuration: High latitude electric field: calculated using the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling solver (MIX) developed by Merkin and Lyon (2010). The inputs to MIX are SAMI3's internal conductances, plus field-aligned current observations from Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE), derived from the 66+ satellite Iridium NEXT constellation's engineering magnetometer data. This potential calculation is described in Chartier et al (2022). For ease of use, SAMI3 output is remapped to a regular grid using the Earth System Modeling Framework by Hill et al (2004