[en] Modern models of sustainable economic growth are metal-intensive and will not be successful in the future unless a continuous supply of mineral-derived products is ensured. Despite this being logical, there is still a significant reluctance regarding mineral exploration and mining activities, often reflected in: (i) unfavourable public opinions; and (ii) absence of political measures or continuity of agendas that actually appreciate the way minerals are produced and the players directly or indirectly involved in this production. To succeed, the MINERAL INdustry will have to (re)define its strategy and find innovative approaches to old problems and clearly demonstrate that mineral products can be efficiently delivered to support global development and assist suitable paths to welfare and quality of life, thus also providing real value to all concerned. In this study we give a concise review of the main challenges posed to the MINERAL INdustry, and also indicate the most relevant opportunities and advance some proposals to constructively face the identified weaknesses and threats. The fundamental outcome is that the long-term balance between supply and demand of mineral products requires concerted actions on different fronts aiming: (i) the safeguarding of known resources; (ii) high-quality (scientifically and technologically driven) exploration surveys; (iii) improvements in mining and mineral transformation/ beneficiation; (iv) advances in consistent combinations of primary and secondary sources of raw materials, along with higher concerns on their judicious use; (v) effective and stable mining policies; and (vi) new insights on the role played by the MINERAL INdustry through fruitful dialogues with society in general.

[en] Tiete River, with 1100 km of extension, is one of the most economically important river of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil and throughout its length can be found reservoirs formed by damming its waters. This river is considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world, especially when it passes through the city of Sao Paulo. As a result of pollution observed since the 1950's, a project was established with the aim of evaluating the historic concentration of the trace elements As, Ba, Br, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Eu, Fe, Hf, La, Lu, Na, Nd, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sm, Ta, Tb, Th, U, Yb and Zn (mg.kg^-1), in sediment cores dated by ²¹⁰Pb method, sampled is several points of the river, since its source in Salesopolis up the mouth, on the Parana River. This work presents the results obtained by the trace elements above determined in two sediment cores collected in reservoirs in the city of Salesopolis and Pirapora do Bom Jesus. The analytical techniques used for the analysis were instrumental neutron activation analysis and gross beta measurement, respectively. The results obtained for the elements Br, Ce, Cr, Cs, Eu, Nd, Sb, Sm, Th and U are higher than the values of Upper Continental Crust and the sedimentation rate obtained for the reservoir in Salesopolis, 1.53 cm.y^-1, suggest silting processes. The enrichment factor and the geo-accumulation index were used to assess the presence of anthropogenic sources of pollution. Document available in abstract form only. (authors)

[en] The work herein verifies the changes of the elastic moduli, damping and modulus of rupture (MOR) of a high alumina refractory castable due to heating, cooling and heating-cooling thermal shock damage. Twelve prismatic specimens were prepared for the tests and divided into four groups. The thermal shocks were performed on three groups, each containing three specimens having abrupt temperature changes of 1100 degree centigrade during heating in the first group, during cooling in the second and during heating followed by cooling in the third group. The fourth group, which was taken as a reference did not receive any thermal shock. The elastic moduli were measured after each thermal shock cycle. After 10 cycles, the MOR, the damping and the damping dependence on excitation amplitude were measured at room temperature for all specimens. The elastic moduli showed a similar decrease and the damping a similar increase due to the cooling and heating-cooling thermal shocks. The heating thermal shocks caused no significant changes on the elastic moduli and damping. However, the MOR appeared to be sensitive to the heating thermal shock. This work also shows that the damping for the studied refractory castable is non-linear (i.e., amplitude of excitation sensitive) and that this non-linearity increases when the damage level rises. (Author) 19 refs.

No abstract available

[en] Full text: The targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions have a significant increase in the consumption of biofuels in coming years, especially ethanol. Ethanol is highlighted, because, besides being used as a direct fuel source in automotive, may be used to produce hydrogen, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and other chemical products by dehydrogenation reactions. In this investigation, catalytic behavior of copper supported on hierarchical porous alumina was accompanied using operando XAS-Raman-Mass Spectroscopies in ethanol dehydrogenation reaction. This reaction was investigated in Soleil Synchrotron Laboratory - France, on reduced and calcined 10wt.%Cu/Al₂O₃ catalysts between 200-400°C. XANES data during the reduction treatment at 250°C for 30 minutes showed that copper starts to reduce around 210°C, with the formation of about 60% of intermediate Cu⁺ species. At the end of the reduction, the copper is nearly completely reduced. For this reduced catalyst, the formation of H₂, acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate as the main products at 300°C in ethanol flow was observed. At higher temperature, an increase in ethylene and ethyl ether products was detected, related to acid sites of alumina. For unreduced Cu catalyst, XANES data showed that the reduction only starts at a temperature of 250°C on ethanol stream. At this temperature, an induction period with a high increase the ethanol conversion and formation of H₂ and acetaldehyde as main products was observed. Above 300°C, products selectivity is similar to reduced sample. For this reaction, unreduced copper catalysts showed more active and stable than reduced sample, probably related to agglomeration of copper nanoparticles during the reduction treatment. (author)

[en] Grids of stellar spectra are extensively used in astrophysics in a range of applications, from derivation of atmospheric parameters in observed stellar spectra, to archaeological studies in integrated light of galaxies. Theoretical stellar libraries have been increasingly used in recent years to overcome limitations of empirical libraries by, for example, exploring atmospheric parameter spaces not well represented in the latter. Nevertheless, there are still caveats and stellar libraries can only partially model observations with accuracy. Here we discuss the current need for synthetic libraries, in particular for applications in stellar population studies. Next we briefly present a non-extensive sample of libraries available in the literature, and we then highlight how better atomic and molecular opacities are much needed to overcome the deficiencies of current synthetic libraries. (author)

No abstract available

[en] In order to assess the lethal efficiency and other biological effects of inner shell ionisations of constituent atoms of DNA ('K' events), experiments were developed at the LURE synchrotron facility using ultrasoft X rays as a probe of K events. The lethal efficiency of ultrasoft X rays above the carbon K threshold was especially investigated using V79 cells and compared with their efficiency to induce double strand breaks in dry plasmid-DNA. A correlation between the K event efficiencies for these processes is shown. Beams of 340 eV were found to be twice as efficient at killing cells than were beams at 250 eV. In addition, a rough two-fold increase of the relative biological effectiveness for dicentric+ring induction has also been observed between 250 and 340 eV radiations. (author)

[en] Full text: The interest in the use of nuclear reactors as an energy source for the desalination of seawater started in the Nineteen Sixties. The urgent necessity to provide potable water has evoked a number of reports. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has shown intense interest in nuclear desalination since 1989. In particular, water scarcity has become a reality in the arid and semi-arid parts of the northeastern region of Brazil, and its variability from season to season, makes much of water supply unavailable when it is most needed. This is the reason why nuclear desalination may be an alternative for fresh water supply and power generation in this region of the country. There exist three concepts of nuclear desalination having technico-economic feasibility; i.e., multiple-effect evaporation (MEE), reverse osmosis (RO), and multiple-stage flashing (MSF). There is extensive literature, both academic and industrial, covering diverse aspects of the aforementioned concepts. However, it appears that the question of the optimal design of a nuclear desalination process plant has not been addressed so far. It is the objective of the work reported in this paper to start to fill this gap. The focus of the present work is on the optimal design of a nuclear desalination process plant consisting of a pressurised water reactor (PWR) and a multi-effect evaporator (MEE). In particular, the PWR-MEE conventional coupling scheme is considered, whereby vapour extracted from one (on more) turbine stage is used to preheat seawater. The optimal design problem is formulated and solved as a mathematical programming model, in a somewhat similar fashion to work reported for a combined cycle coupled to a MSF system. Results obtained so far are encouraging, although vapour consumption rates are 2-3 times higher than those suggested by EURODESAL work. Work is in progress to ascertain that operating conditions are identical to those of EURODESAL with a view to validating the mathematical programming model developed in the present work. (author)

No abstract available