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• The glycerol pre-treatment method is an effective way to assist in determining minor reactive phases. • The problematic mineral phases associated with AlN could be easily identified after pre-treatment. • The existence of amorphous or turbostratic graphitic carbon in black dross has been confirmed. • The FT-IR allowed the successful identification of Al 4 C 3 presence in industrial samples of black dross. Aqueous leaching to recover salts from black dross is accompanied by hazardous gas generation. The gas-generating phases vary significantly across differently sourced black dross. The challenge for the industry is how to accurately qualify and quantify the problematic components of black dross, especially minor reactive phases. This paper employed XRF, EDX, XRD, Raman and FTIR to analyse two industrial black dross samples from various sources. A novel pre-treatment method before characterisation was devised using water-free glycerol and anhydrous ethanol to remove the major salt components, without reacting the gas-generating phases. The results show that around 80 % of the salts existent in the black dross had been removed successfully through pre-treatment. This method facilitated the determination of minor reactive phases characterised by XRD, XRF and EDX, and had little effect on the characterisation by Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. The ammonia-generating nitride phase was detected by XRD, Raman and FTIR. The FTIR, moreover, allowed the successful identification of carbide. Best practice guidelines for the industrial analysis of black dross has been proposed. The guidelines would provide industry with evidence to include or adjust gas treatment methods and operational parameters when dealing with compositional variability in industrially-sourced black dross. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid ionic liquids (SoILs) with cellulose as a support have been demonstrated recently to be effective and low-cost sorbents for CO2 capture. However, at present it is not clear whether they remove more CO2 than is released in the rest of the life cycle, including their manufacture, regeneration and disposal. It is also unknown what other impacts they may have over the whole life cycle while attempting to mitigate climate change. Therefore, this study evaluates for the first time the life cycle environmental sustainability of cellulose-supported SoILs in comparison with unsupported SoILs and some other sorbents. Four SoILs are assessed for 11 life cycle impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), with and without the cellulose support: methyltrioctyl ammonium acetate ([N1888][Ac]), tetraethyl ammonium acetate ([N4444][Ac]), tetra-octylammonium bromide ([N8888]Br) and 1-butyl-4-methylimidazolium bromide ([Bmim]Br). They are compared with one of the ILs in the liquid state (trihexyltetradecylphosphonium 1,2,4-triazolide ([P66614][124Triz])) and with three conventional sorbents: monoethanolamine (MEA), zeolite powder and activated carbon. The results show that SoILs with cellulose loading in the range of 70%–80 wt% have better environmental performance per unit mass of CO2 captured than the unsupported SoILs. The net removal of CO2 eq. over the life cycle ranges from 20% for pure [Bmim]Br to 83% for [N1888][Ac] with 75% cellulose and for [N4444][Ac] with both 75% and 80% loadings. However, pure [N8888]Br generates three times more CO2 eq. over the life cycle than it removes. Among the SoILs, [N4444][Ac] with 80% cellulose has the lowest life cycle impacts for eight out of 11 categories. When compared to the conventional sorbents, it has significantly higher impacts, including GWP. However, it is more sustainable than [P66614][124Triz]. The results of this study can be used to target the hotspots and improve the environmental performance of cellulose-supported SoILs through sustainable design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the microecology of macroalgal blooms. Influence of eutrophication on the seaweed flora; Overview on factors that the affect population dynamics and community structure in most seaweeds; Similarity between the relative abundance of microscopic forms to that observed in macroscopic forms in other eutrophic systems.

The article discusses the Faraday Discussion on Carbon Dioxide Utilisation, held in Sheffield, England in September 2015. Topics include efficiency of atom in small molecule and macromolecule synthesis; carbon dioxide reduction reactions; capture agents and conversion mechanism associated with carbon dioxide utilization. The event featured people like professors George Dowson and Peter Styring.

Describes the Grid Application Development Software (GrADS) project used in distributed computing. Applications of the grid software; Details on the GrADS software architecture; Development of a parallel program for efficient execution on the grid; Overview of the execution environment for grid Applications; Discussion on the design methodologies used in the grid.

The genetic consequences of living on the edge of distributional ranges have been the subject of a largely unresolved debate. Populations occurring along persistent low latitude ranges (rear-edge) are expected to retain high and unique genetic diversity. In contrast, currently less favourable environmental conditions limiting population size at such range-edges may have caused genetic erosion that prevails over past historical effects, with potential consequences on reducing future adaptive capacity. The present study provides an empirical test of whether population declines towards a peripheral range might be reflected on decreasing diversity and increasing population isolation and differentiation. We compare population genetic differentiation and diversity with trends in abundance along a latitudinal gradient towards the peripheral distribution range of Saccorhiza polyschides, a large brown seaweed that is the main structural species of kelp forests in SW Europe. Signatures of recent bottleneck events were also evaluated to determine whether the recently recorded distributional shifts had a negative influence on effective population size. Our findings show decreasing population density and increasing spatial fragmentation and local extinctions towards the southern edge. Genetic data revealed two well supported groups with a central contact zone. As predicted, higher differentiation and signs of bottlenecks were found at the southern edge region. However, a decrease in genetic diversity associated with this pattern was not verified. Surprisingly, genetic diversity increased towards the edge despite bottlenecks and much lower densities, suggesting that extinctions and recolonizations have not strongly reduced diversity or that diversity might have been even higher there in the past, a process of shifting genetic baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]