Environmental Technologies to Treat Rare Earth Elements Pollution: Principles and Engineering

Rare earth elements (REE) have applications in various modern technologies, e.g., semiconductors, mobile phones, magnets. They are categorized as critical raw materials due to their strategic importance in economies and high risks associated with their supply chain. Therefore, more sustainable practices for efficient extraction and recovery of REE from secondary sources are being developed. This book, Environmental Technologies to Treat Rare Earth Elements Pollution: Principles and Engineering: presents the fundamentals of the (bio)geochemical cycles of rare earth elements and which imbalances in these cycles result in pollution.overviews physical, chemical and biological technologies for successful treatment of water, air, soils and sediments contaminated with different rare earth elements.explores the recovery of value-added products from waste streams laden with rare earth elements, including nanoparticles and quantum dots. This book is suited for teaching and research purposes as well as professional reference for those working on rare earth elements. In addition, the information provided in this book is helpful to scientists, researchers and practitioners in related fields, such as those working on metal/metalloid microbe interaction and sustainable green approaches for resource recovery from wastes. ISBN: 9781789062229 (Paperback) ISBN: 9781789062236 (eBook) ISBN: 9781789062243 (ePUB)

One for All and All in One: Modified Silica Kit-based Protocol for simultaneous sample-specific Extraction of DNA from a Variety of Source Materials

Protocols utilized for the extraction of DNA vary significantly with regards to steps involved and duration of the overall procedure due to material-specific requirements for ensuring the highest possible yield in recovery of DNA. This variation mostly affects aspects of sample preparation and digestion steps required to release the DNA from the sample material.In contexts such as the development of new PCR-based assays - which always includes a test of species-specificity - reference samples from a number of species are utilized, requiring extraction of DNA from a variety of source materials, each with their specific conditions for effective isolation of DNA.The method presented here follows the strategy of synchronizing sample material-specific aspects such as sample preparation and digestion in such a way that one common protocol can be utilized for the actual extraction and purification of the DNA, allowing for an overall more efficient extraction process, while maintaining optimized conditions for DNA recovery.

Efficient Extraction of the RuBisCO Enzyme from Spinach Leaves Using Aqueous Solutions of Biocompatible Ionic Liquids

Ribulose-1,5-biphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) is the most abundant protein on the planet, being present in plants, algae and various species of bacteria, with application in the pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic and food industries. However, current extraction methods of RuBisCO do not allow high yields of extraction. Therefore, the development of an efficient and selective RuBisCOs’ extraction method is required. In this work, aqueous solutions of biocompatible ionic liquids (ILs), i.e., ILs derived from choline and analogues of glycine-betaine, were applied in the RuBisCO’s extraction from spinach leaves. Three commercial imidazolium-based ILs were also investigated for comparison purposes. To optimize RuBisCO’s extraction conditions, response surface methodology was applied. Under optimum extraction conditions, extraction yields of 10.92 and 10.57 mg of RuBisCO/g of biomass were obtained with the ILs cholinium acetate ([Ch][Ac]) and cholinium chloride ([Ch]Cl), respectively. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy results show that the secondary structure of RuBisCO is better preserved in the IL solutions when compared to the commonly used extraction solvent. The obtained results indicate that cholinium-based ILs are a promising and viable alternative for the extraction of RuBisCO from vegetable biomass.