🔗 Articles: Sunday 28.Apr.2024


CleanTechnica: Scientists Are Shaking Up Lithium Extraction With A Different Kind of Chemistry

Using these principles, Hlova’s team developed MELLT [mechanochemical extraction of lithium at low temperatures]. In a process called ball milling, solid spodumene chunks and a solid reactant chemical, like sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), are placed into a chamber with steel balls. The chamber is moved in different ways, causing rapid, repetitive shear and impact stresses among the materials. Repeated stress eventually leads to high-energy states within the chemicals, causing them to react with each other. These reactions result in water-soluble lithium compounds. These lithium compounds are extracted from the final product with a water wash.

MELLT streamlines hard-rock mineral extraction, uses significantly less energy, and eliminates toxic waste streams. MELLT is also much faster than brine extraction methods.

“Mechanochemistry offers a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to conducting chemical reactions,” said Hlova. “This project offers the potential to diversify lithium supply chains in the U.S., reducing lithium criticality and paving the way for a sustainable future.”


PBS: Hard-hit cocoa harvests in West Africa cause chocolate prices to soar worldwide

If you’ve shopped for chocolate recently, you may have noticed your favorite items are either smaller or more expensive, or sometimes both. The price of cocoa — the key ingredient in chocolate — is the highest it’s ever been after nearly doubling in the last four months. As Ali Rogin reports, this worldwide shortage has been years in the making.


CBC: London Drugs shuts stores in Western Canada due to ‘operational issue’

Retailer operates nearly 80 stores across B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

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CBC News spoke to staff at a location in Kamloops, B.C., who said they were experiencing a “computer issue,” which meant the store could not assist customers.


TechCrunch: Humanoid robots are learning to fall well

Boston Dynamics and Agility are teaching their bipedal robots to brace for the inevitable.


Guardian: Taxing big fossil fuel firms ‘could raise $900bn in climate finance by 2030’

A new tax on fossil fuel companies based in the world’s richest countries could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations cope with the escalating climate crisis, according to a report.

The Climate Damages Tax report, published on Monday, calculates that an additional tax on fossil fuel majors based in the wealthiest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could raise $720bn (ÂŁ580bn) by the end of the decade.


SMH: Samsung S95D review: 4K TV with anti-reflection excels in the light

Samsung has delivered its third generation of OLED TVs, and once again made a surprising leap forward in capabilities, at least, as far as the flagship S95D goes.

Not only is this TV one of the brightest and most colourful models you’ll find on the market, it boasts an anti-glare screen that all but banishes reflections, making it (unusually for an OLED) ideal for bright rooms.


Daring Fireball: Paul Thurrott Reviews the 15-Inch M3 MacBook Air

Paul Thurrott, writing at his eponymous website:

Ultimately, I concluded that this isn’t just about looks, though that obviously plays a role. Instead, it’s a sum of its attributes, the total package. It’s the feeling of incredible lightness, given its size, when I pick it up to move to another room. The way it can sit on a bed or other soft surface and never get too hot or fire up some loud fans that aren’t even necessary or present in this device. How the battery just lasts and lasts and lasts, and makes a mockery of other companies’ “all-day battery life” claims.


The Athletic: Johnston: This is the end of the Maple Leafs as we know them

Eight years and nine playoff series into their shared tenure as saviors of the Maple Leafs, three of the best individual performers in franchise history were reduced to sniping at one another on the bench after bumbling through an ineffective shift together.

William Nylander appeared to direct pointed criticism at Mitch Marner. Auston Matthews looked to have some words for his teammate(s), too. Marner turned and tossed each of his gloves to the ground in frustration.

This was a make-or-break game, yet another night when they were trying to shed the weight of their past, and the Leafs instead came apart at the seams in front of national television audiences on both sides of the border and a sellout crowd at Scotiabank Arena that started off supportive and ended up sneering.

Barring an unlikely and unexpected comeback down 3-1 in a first-round series to the Boston Bruins, this was the end of the Maple Leafs as we knew them.

There is no conceivable way to run this back.

It hasn’t worked, and isn’t working. …


Last Updated: 28.Apr.2024 23:56 EDT

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