Very High Purity Aluminum: An Historical Perspective

The origins of High purity aluminum production are likely to have a strong impact on future production in conventional reduction cells. Many of the key elements that are necessary to produce Very High purity ingot were in place at the very beginning of the 20th century. In this article, the author examines some of the history of the industry. He also comments on aspects of aluminum smelter design that will continue to serve purity markets into the 21st century.     

Dynamics of urban growth in the Washington DC metropolitan area, 1973-1996, from Landsat observations

Like other human-induced landcover changes, urbanization represents a response to specific economic, demographic, or environmental conditions. We use the Washington D.C. area as a case study to relate satellite-derived estimates of urban growth to these economic and demographic drivers. Using the Landsat data archive we have created a three epoch timeseries for urban growth for the period 1973-1996. This map is based on a NDVI-differencing approach for establishing urban change filtered with a landcover classification to minimize confusion with agriculture. Results show that the built-up area surrounding Washington DC has expanded at a rate of ～22km² per year during this period, with notably higher growth during the late-1980s. Comparisons with census data indicate that the physical growth of the urban plan, observable from space, can be reasonably correlated with regional and national economic patterns.     

The Political Life of Rising Acid Mine Water

The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 that gave rise to the exploitation of the world’s largest gold reserves inaugurated new associations of air and earth, science and politics, humans and nonhumans. Very rapidly, these were organised into two apparently distinct realms—an aboveground world of capital, commerce, culture and politics and a belowground world of labour, minerals, rocks and science. Yet the two realms were deeply interconnected, and the threshold between them was always, literally and figuratively, in danger of collapsing. In this paper, I explore the use of legislation and cartography to stabilise this section and keep the two realms apart, and the aesthetic practices that portrayed their interrelatedness. I then chronicle the incursion of acid mine water, a geological by-product of mining operations, from the mining voids into the above-ground world of human affairs. This not only made the invisible processes of its commodification visible but also became a proposition around which new forms of political life have been assembled.     

Development of Simplified Heterocyclic Acetogenin Analogues as Potent and Selective Trypanosoma brucei Inhibitors

Neglected tropical diseases caused by parasitic infections are an ongoing and increasing concern. They are a burden to human and animal health, having the most devastating effect on the world′s poorest countries. Building upon our previously reported triazole analogues, in this study we describe the synthesis and biological testing of other novel heterocyclic acetogenin‐inspired derivatives, namely 3,5‐isoxazoles, furoxans, and furazans. Several of these compounds maintain low‐micromolar levels of inhibition against Trypanosoma brucei, whilst having no observable inhibitory effect on mammalian cells, leading to the possibility of novel lead compounds for selective treatment.     

Impacts of Aerosol Aging on Laser Desorption/Ionization in Single-Particle Mass Spectrometers

Single-particle mass spectrometry (SPMS) has been widely used for characterizing the chemical mixing state of ambient aerosol particles. However, processes occurring during particle ablation and ionization can influence the mass spectra produced by these instruments. These effects remain poorly characterized for complex atmospheric particles. During the 2005 Study of Organic Aerosols in Riverside (SOAR), a thermodenuder was used to evaporate the more volatile aerosol species in sequential temperature steps up to 230°C; the residual aerosol particles were sampled by an aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) and a single-particle aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer (ATOFMS). Removal of the secondary species (e.g., ammonium nitrate/sulfate) through heating permitted assessment of the change in ionization patterns as the composition changed for a given particle type. It was observed that a coating of secondary species can reduce the ionization efficiency by changing the degree of laser absorption or particle ablation, which significantly impacted the measured ion peak areas. Nonvolatile aerosol components were used as pseudo-internal standards (or “reference components”) to correct for this LDI effect. Such corrected ATOFMS ion peak areas correlated well with the AMS measurements of the same species up to 142°C. This work demonstrates the potential to accurately relate SPMS peak areas to the mass of specific aerosol components.

Copyright 2014 American Association for Aerosol Research     

An Exemplar Imidazoline Surfactant for Corrosion Inhibitor Studies: Synthesis,Characterization, and Physicochemical Properties

An optimized one-pot recipe has been developed to synthesize a surfactant molecule, referred to as OMID, consisting of an imidazoline head group and aliphatic tail, which is an exemplar corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in acidic solutions. As evidenced by gas chromatography, ¹H and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance, and Fourier-transform infrared data, a high-purity product was achieved without the use of either a solvent or catalyst. Critical micelle concentration values and corrosion inhibition efficiencies ( η %) were determined in aqueous solutions of hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid using surface tensiometry and linear polarization resistance measurements, respectively. Hydrolysis of the imidazoline head group as a function of pH (0–11) was explored with ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy. In addition, N 1s and C 1s X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data were acquired from both surface-adsorbed OMID and a multilayer of the imidazoline head group of OMID. These latter data are highly relevant to those attempting to understand OMID inhibition chemistry.     

Temperature gradients drive radial fluid flow in petri dishes and multiwell plates

Liquid in a Petri dish spontaneously circulates in a radial pattern, even when the dish is at rest. These fluid flows have been observed and utilized for biological research, but their origins have not been well‐studied. Here, particle‐tracking to measure velocities of radial fluid flows, which are shown to be linked to evaporation, is used. Infrared thermal imaging was used to identify thermal gradients at the air‐liquid interface and at the bottom of the dish. Two‐color ratiometric fluorescence confocal imaging was used to measure thermal gradients in the vertical direction within the fluid. A finite‐element model of the fluid, incorporating the measured temperature profiles, shows that buoyancy forces are sufficient to produce flows consistent with the measured particle velocity results. Such flows may arise in other dish or plate formats, and may impact biological research in positive or negative ways. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 2227–2233, 2016     

Performance evaluation of canine-associated Bacteroidales assays in a multi-laboratory comparison study

The contribution of fecal pollution from dogs in urbanized areas can be significant and is an often underestimated problem. Microbial source tracking methods (MST) utilizing quantitative PCR of dog-associated gene sequences encoding 16S rRNA of Bacteroidales are a useful tool to estimate these contributions. However, data about the performance of available assays are scarce. The results of a multi-laboratory study testing two assays for the determination of dog-associated Bacteroidales (DogBact and BacCan-UCD) on 64 single and mixed fecal source samples created from pooled fecal samples collected in California are presented here. Standardization of qPCR data treatment lowered inter-laboratory variability of sensitivity and specificity results. Both assays exhibited 100% sensitivity. Normalization methods are presented that eliminated random and confirmed non-target responses. The combination of standardized qPCR data treatment, use of normalization via a non-target specific Bacteroidales assay (GenBac3), and application of threshold criteria improved the calculated specificity significantly for both assays. Such measures would reasonably improve MST data interpretation not only for canine-associated assays, but for all qPCR assays used in identifying and monitoring fecal pollution in the environment.