Two-dimensional supercrystals harvest solar energy efficiently to produce hydrogen

Staff Writer | December 29, 2023 |

Emiliano Cortés is working on material solutions to capture and use solar energy more efficiently. (Image by the University of Munich).

An international team of researchers has developed a two-dimensional supercrystal that generates hydrogen from formic acid with the help of sunlight.


In a paper published in the journal Nature Catalysis, the scientists explain that the goal of their plasmonic nanostructures is to concentrate solar energy, as it is mostly diluted when it reaches the earth.

“Where the high-energy particles of sunlight, the photons, meet atomic structures is where our research begins,” lead researcher Emiliano Cortés said in a media statement. “We are working on material solutions to capture and use solar energy more efficiently.”

According to Cortés, these findings have great potential as they enable novel solar cells and photocatalysts. The industry has high hopes for the latter because they can make light energy accessible for chemical reactions—bypassing the need to generate electricity.

For their supercrystal, Cortés and his colleague Matías Herran created particles in the range of 10–200 nanometers from a plasmonic metal—which in this case is gold.

“At this scale, a special phenomenon occurs with plasmonic metals, which also include silver, copper, aluminum, and magnesium: visible light interacts very strongly with the electrons of the metal, causing them to oscillate resonantly,” Herran said.

This means that the electrons move collectively very quickly from one side of the nanoparticle to the other, creating a kind of mini-magnet. Experts refer to this as a dipole moment.

“For the incident light, this is a big change so that it subsequently interacts much more strongly with the metallic nanoparticle,” Cortés explained. “Analogously, one can think of the process as a superlens concentrating the energy. Our nanomaterials do that but on the molecular scale.”

This process allows the nanoparticles to capture more sunlight and convert it into very high-energy electrons. These, in turn, help drive chemical reactions.

Organizing gold particles

To harness this energy, the researchers, who work at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, teamed up with colleagues at the University of Hamburg. They arranged gold particles in an orderly fashion on a surface according to the principle of self-organization. The particles must be very close but not touching for maximized light-matter interactions. In collaboration with a research team from Freie Universität Berlin, which studied the optical properties of the material, the LMU researchers found that light absorption increased many times over.

“The gold nanoparticle arrays focus the incoming light extremely efficiently, yielding highly localized and strong electric fields, the so-called hotspots,” Herrán said. These form between the gold particles, which gave Cortés and Herrán the idea of placing platinum nanoparticles, a classic and powerful catalyst material, right in the interspaces.

“Platinum is not the material of choice for photocatalysis because it absorbs sunlight poorly. However, we can force it in hotspots to enhance this otherwise poor absorption and power chemical reactions with the light energy. In our case, the reaction converts formic acid into hydrogen,” Herrán pointed out. With a hydrogen production rate from formic acid of 139 millimoles per hour and per gram of catalyst, the photocatalytic material currently holds the world record for H2 production with sunlight.

The researchers noted that, at present, hydrogen is primarily produced from fossil fuels, predominantly from natural gas. To switch to a more sustainable production, research teams worldwide are working on technologies that use alternative feedstocks—including formic acid, ammonia, and water. The focus is also on developing photocatalytic reactors suitable for large-scale production.

“Clever material solutions like ours are an important building block for the success of the technology,” the two researchers mentioned. “By combining plasmonic and catalytic metals, we are advancing the development of potent photocatalysts for industrial applications. It is a new way to use sunlight and one that offers potential for other reactions such as the conversion of CO2 into usable substances.”

When science meets art: recycled metal and lab-grown gems

Reuters | December 22, 2023 

Rings and cans. (Image from Anabela Chan’s Instagram.)

For some a natural diamond, created over billions of years, is the ultimate luxury, but an award-winning British designer sees greater worth in jewellery crafted using laboratory-grown gems and metal from recycled cans.


Anabela Chan said she chose her materials after witnessing what she said were poor working conditions in diamond mines.


“These are some f the most precious and valuable commodities in the world, that just didn’t make any sense to me,” she said, in her Knightsbridge boutique in central London.

Instead, her designs rely on lab-grown diamonds, recycled aluminum from cans and pearls grown using regenerative farming techniques.

Chan’s company does not give sales figures but said it had seen strong demand since the Covid-19 pandemic. She won the “Game Changer” category at the British Luxury Awards in November.

According to Edahn Golan Diamond Research & Data, the lab-grown jewellery market has seen annual growth of 20% in recent years, driving global profits to $15 billion.

As more producers enter the market, selling prices for lab-grown diamonds have fallen, and brands are looking to differentiate themselves, particularly through the jewellery design.

At major retailer of lab-grown diamonds Pandora, head of diamonds Joshua Braman said lab-grown gems could create extra scope for jewellery design.

Another point of difference can be sustainability.

Chan relies on suppliers who use technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere in order to make diamonds, “so effectively taking something negative and turning it into something positive,” Chan said.

(By Lara Brehmer; Editing by Barbara Lewis)

Southern mining municipalities are the most violent in Venezuela – report

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | December 29, 2023 | 

Operation against illegal mining in Venezuela. December 2023.

 (Image by GJ. Domingo Hernández Lárez, X.)

The three most violent municipalities in Venezuela are located in the southeastern Bolívar state mining area, a new report by the NGO Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV) shows.


According to the document, the three municipalities in the state bordering Brazil registered 202 violent deaths in 2023. In detail, the municipality of El Callao registered 91 deaths, which is equivalent to a rate of 424.7 victims per one hundred thousand inhabitants in 2023. This makes it the most violent municipality in the South American country.

Next to El Callao are the Sifontes municipality, with the city of Tumemero as its main hotspot and a rate of 151 victims per one hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roscio municipality with the city of Guasipati as its most dangerous place and a rate of 134 violent deaths per one hundred thousand inhabitants.

Many of the gold mining operations in the Bolívar state are unregulated and are threatening the health of several national parks, including Canaima, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In May of this year, the Venezuelan government deployed over 5,000 soldiers in the country’s national parks intending to evict criminal groups leading such illegal gold mining and drug trafficking operations.

During this campaign, which was carried out in tandem with the neighbouring Colombian armed forces, thousands of litres of fuel, hundreds of engines, rafts, pipes, processing plants, chemical agents, camping gear and other materials were destroyed.

But the military presence and actions did not put an immediate end to the activity. In September, a clash between soldiers and armed civilians operating illegal mines ended up with two people dead and six injured, while in early December, 12 people died when an artisanal gold mine near the town of Icabarú, also in the Bolívar state, collapsed.

Despite these results, the head of the government, Nicolás Maduro, said on December 28 in a televised address together with military personnel, that the armed operations allowed for the “peaceful liberation” of national parks and other protected areas from “predatory criminal mining.”

Overall, the year 2023 saw 6,973 violent deaths in Venezuela, 1,956 of which were victims of homicides committed by criminals, 953 deaths were caused by police actions and 4,064 violent deaths are still under investigation in terms of cause and intention.

Brazil cracks down as wildcat miners in the Amazon shift their operations

Reuters | December 28, 2023 |

Operation against illegal mining in Pará, Brazil. 

(Image by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources IBAMA, Flickr.)

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil is fighting destructive wildcat gold mining as it spreads from Indigenous lands into government-protected conservation areas.


Federal Police have joined the government’s biodiversity conservation agency ICMBio on a series of recent operations to catch illegal gold miners and destroy their camps and equipment.

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government has already been cracking down on mining on Indigenous reservations. But that has pushed some miners to other forests where there has been little enforcement.

This month, armed officers of ICMBio, a government agency named after murdered environmental activist Chico Mendes, swooped down in helicopters on wildcat camps in the upper reaches of the Tapajos, a tributary of the Amazon River.

They set fire to barges used to pump and filter ore, destroyed excavators and chainsaws, and seized weapons, radios and scales used by miners to weigh their gold.

Lula has vowed to stamp out illegal mining and end deforestation by 2030. That is a sharp reversal of policy from his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who was criticized globally for relaxing environmental controls, giving illegal loggers and miners free range in the Amazon. He argued that Brazil had the right to develop its natural resources.

On one recent mission, a Reuters photographer followed an ICMBio team into the Urupadi National Forest where agents detained a handful of wildcat miners and destroyed their tents, excavators, dredging equipment and fuel supplies.

The miners had cut down swathes of jungle and dug dozens of ponds to dredge for gold that they separated from sand and ore with mercury, a contaminant that poisons fish in the rivers.

Through the open door of their incoming helicopter, the ICMBio agents fired automatic weapons at motor boats carrying fleeing miners. They fired again to blow up barrels of diesel fuel and set fire to excavators so they could not be used again.

“We destroy their camps and they keep coming back,” said mission commander Sidney Serafim.

During a three-week operation, the agents found 20 mining sites and 11 clandestine airstrips in the forest, along with kilos of mercury and thousands of liters of diesel.

Detained miner Fabio Santos said he had worked prospecting for gold in Munduruku territory further along the Tapajos river, but had moved out due to law enforcement missions and conflict with the Indigenous people.

“We thought it would be quieter here. Bolsonaro did not destroy our equipment,” he said.

“Things are going downhill with the new government,” said another miner, Ramon Marques. “God left the gold here for us to enjoy it,” he added.

The men were set free into the jungle on foot. Only the manager of one of the wildcat mining sites, Manuel de Jesus Silva, was taken into police custody.

He ran a store in a wooden shack where he sold canned food and liquor to the miners for grams of gold, and had a snooker table outside for them to play.

“I used to make 200 grams a month, but in the last two months I got just 100 grams,” Silva complained.

(By Adriano Machado and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Chile president praises Codelco, SQM lithium deal ensuring state control

Reuters | December 28, 2023 | 

Chilean president Gabriel Boric. (Image by Casa de América, Flickr.)

SANTIAGO, Dec 27 – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric hailed the formation of a new government-controlled lithium partnership that fuses assets of state-run Codelco with private miner SQM, as the leftist leader advances his push for greater public control over the battery metal.


Chilean lithium miner SQM SQMA.SN said on Wednesday it would partner with copper giant Codelco for the future development and production of the metal in the Atacama salt flat, in a tie-up set to kick off in 2025 and run through 2060.

The deal gives Codelco majority control in line with the president’s plans announced in April to strengthen state control of lithium to generate more broad-based benefits from surging demand and to allow only public-private partnerships to participate in its exploitation.

“This is an unprecedented milestone in Chile’s mining industry and a concrete step towards achieving fair and sustainable development,” Boric said in a televised address praising the public-private venture.


For much of the year, the firms had been locked in talks over the future of lithium mining and production in the salt flat, located in Chile’s north and the home to 90% of the nation’s lithium reserves. The South American country has the world’s largest proven lithium reserves.

As part of the memorandum of understanding announced on Wednesday, both firms agreed to form a new public-private partnership company in which copper miner Codelco will have a 50% plus one share stake that will begin a first phase of operations in January 2025, the companies said in statements.

Both companies said the agreement would facilitate a “transition” between SQM’s current lease, which expires at the end of 2030, and Codelco’s lease over the same area that runs from 2031 to 2060.

The new company will be responsible for the production of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide – the two main processed lithium products used to make rechargeable batteries – on the properties that SQM currently leases from Chile’s state development office, SQM said.

SQM said it would provide the fixed assets, knowledge and employees from its lithium business, while Codelco would contribute the lease and an additional production and sales quota.

“This is a significant milestone in public-private partnerships in Chile,” SQM CEO Ricardo Ramos said in a statement.

As part of the deal, Codelco will provide the sales authorization for an additional 165,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) to be used by 2031.

Codelco will also authorize an additional 135,000 tons of LCE for the new public-private entity during its initial phase, but conditioned on increased production, according to the SQM statement.

(Reporting by Natalia Ramos and Fabian Cambero; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle and Valentine Hilaire; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Jamie Freed)

Codelco, SQM ink lithium partnership agreement

Reuters | December 27, 2023 |

Aerial view of the brine pools and processing areas of the Soquimich (SQM) lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat. (Image from: SQM Corporate Presentation.)

Chilean lithium miner SQM and state-run Codelco have reached a memorandum of understanding to form a government-controlled partnership for the future production of the key rechargeable battery metal, the firms said on Wednesday.


The two companies agreed to form a new company in which Codelco will have a majority stake and which will begin a first phase of operations in January 2025, the companies said in statements.

State-controlled public-private partnerships are the key element of President Gabriel Boric’s new lithium mining strategy announced last April aiming to generate more broad-based benefits from surging demand for the ultra-light white metal.

(By Natalia Ramos, Fabian Cambero and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by David Alire Garcia)

Mexico finds first remains of coal miners lost in 2022 accident

Reuters | December 28, 2023 | 

Rescue operation at El Pinabete mine in Mexico. 

(Screenshot from Las Estrellas | NMás, YouTube.)

Mexican authorities have located remains from two of the 10 coal miners trapped and killed at the El Pinabete mine in the state of Coahuila in August 2022, the government said in a statement on Thursday.

Why it’s important

The disaster highlighted the dangers workers face at Mexico’s small, unregulated coal mines and drew attention to Mexico’s state-owned power utility CFE, which the miner provided coal for.

Support for CFE and for Mexico’s coal industry has been a pillar of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s energy policies.

Context

The miners became confined underground at the Pinabete mine in the northern border state of Coahuila on Aug. 3, 2022, when a tunnel wall collapsed, triggering flooding throughout the mine.

Reuters reported last year that the mine had not been visited by labor inspectors.

Key numbers

It took authorities 512 days to find the first remains 62 meters below the surface, after rescue authorities extracted 2.3 million cubic meters of rock and soil, the government’s statement said.

(By Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Vietnam official held over sand mining as sinkholes spread

Bloomberg News | December 27, 2023 

Boat carrying sand on the Xáng Canal in Vietnam’s An Giang Province. 

(Image by Ted McGrath, Flickr.)

The head of a Vietnamese province was arrested by police for allegedly helping a company illegally mine sand, in part blamed for shoreline erosion and sinkholes across the Mekong Delta — the nation’s rice bowl.


Nguyen Thanh Binh, chairman of An Giang province, was accused of assisting Trung Hau Investment JSC to use local mines to extract the construction material beyond the permitted quantity and gaining “a significantly huge amount of money,” the public security ministry said late Monday. It didn’t provide more details.

Binh couldn’t be reached on phone for comment while three calls to his office went unanswered.

The arrest is the latest in an ongoing crackdown on corruption ordered by the nation’s Communist party since 2021, which has claimed top politicians and corporate executives. In August, a deputy of Binh was held in a related case as sinkholes spread across the Mekong Delta, prompting Premier Pham Minh Chinh to term it as very serious.

The delta has seen the appearance of more than 120 sinkholes this year through mid-June, nearly the same number recorded in 2022, state-run Vietnam Television reported. Sinkholes and erosion in the delta have risen in terms of number, speed and scope, Deputy Agriculture Minister Nguyen Hoang Hiep was quoted as saying at a conference this year.

Trung Hau was permitted to mine about 1.5 million cubic meters of sand to supply to four road projects, but it ended up in extracting nearly 4.8 million cubic meters of sand, pocketing about 253 billion dong ($10.4 million), the security ministry said in August.

Leaders of Trung Hau Investment and more than a dozen other individuals were arrested as part of the widening probe, the government said in a separate statement Tuesday.

(By Mai Ngoc Chau)

Guinea Alumina Corp will let Guinea use its fuel berth after blast

Reuters | December 27, 2023 | 

Bauxite from a Guinea Alumina Corporation operation. (Image by GAC, Facebook.)

Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC), owned by major producer Emirates Global Aluminium, has offered the Guinea government the use of GAC’s fuel berth and bulk storage infrastructure to help deal with the aftermath of an oil terminal blast.


Supply from Guinea, the world’s third largest producer of alumina raw material bauxite, has been in focus, supporting aluminum prices in London, after the Dec. 18 blast damaged fuel tanks at the main oil terminal handling fuel imports.

There is no impact on GAC’s production or shipments to customers, the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding it expected no interruptions to its mining, rail and export activities.

Guinea said on Saturday that supplies of fuel to petrol stations were expected to improve significantly following diplomatic efforts with neighbouring countries.

The Dec. 18 blast killed 23 people and damaged most of the fuel tanks at the West African nation’s main oil terminal that handles its fuel imports, leading to shortages.

According to Emirates Global Aluminium’s website, GAC’s 2022 bauxite exports rose by 16% to a record of 14 million wet metric tons. GAC operates a mining concession, in the northwest of Guinea, transporting bauxite to a GAC port by rail.

Emirates Global Aluminium mainly supplies GAC’s bauxite to third-party customers.

(By Polina Devitt; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Barbara Lewis)

China issues rebuke over coal deaths, adds mines to favored list

Bloomberg News | December 26, 2023 

Coal mine dump in China. 

(Reference image by Peter Van den Bossche, Wikimedia Commons.)

China’s regulator on Monday rebuked officials for two recent disasters at coal mines in Heilongjiang province that killed 23 people, in a rare public censure that blamed the local authorities for overlooking threats to safety.


The country is facing more frequent coal mining fatalities as pressure has mounted to raise output to record levels and ensure energy security. At the same time, the government has shifted its approach tohow it deals with incidents by exempting well-run operations from the consequences of deadly accidents, which can include widespread halts to mines while safety inspections are conducted.

In a separate release on Monday, the National Mine Safety Administration added 53 mines to its favored list, bringing the total for the year to 124.

Heilongjiang, which accounts for just 2% of China’s coal output, has seen 20 accidents this year, according to the administration. The latest involved 12 deaths after the derailment of a coal wagon in a mine shaft. In late November, a gas explosion at another mine killed 11. Both of the companies involved had previously been punished for safety violations.

China’s carrot-and-stick approach to mine safety is aimed at winnowing out smaller, poorly managed private mines, while incentivizing larger, better-run state operations that have spent more on safety to get on the exempted list.

There they can enjoy other benefits beyond avoiding inspections, including more favorable capacity-swap rules that allow mines to add more capacity than they retire, as long as it’s over a certain size.

China metals giant faces protest in Indonesia after fatal blast

Bloomberg News | December 27, 2023 | 

The deadly blast at a furnace run by PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel has triggered an investigation at the Sulawesi police headquarters, pictured here. (Image by the Government of Indonesia, Picryl.)

Workers at a Tsingshan Holding Group plant in Indonesia staged a demonstration and demanded new working conditions after an explosion on Sunday that killed at least 19 people.


The deadly blast at a furnace run by PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel — which is controlled by the Chinese group — has triggered a police investigation and a halt to the firm’s operations. Tsingshan is the world’s biggest nickel producer and one of Indonesia’s largest foreign investors.

On Wednesday, about 100 workers gathered at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park — the site of the blast — to call for better compensation to victims’ families, according to the park’s spokesperson Dedy Kurniawan. Protestors have since dispersed, he said.

Unions also issued a list of more than 20 demands to the industrial park and Tsingshan’s management. Those include a requirement that foreign staff should learn Indonesian, as well as calls for improved pay and health benefits, and better emergency preparedness. The list, seen by Bloomberg News, was issued by five labor organizations including the Confederation of All Indonesian Trade Unions.

The fatal accident at the Tsingshan furnace is the most serious in a number of incidents in Indonesia’s burgeoning nickel industry, which is the world’s biggest after a decade of massive investment spearheaded by Chinese firms.

Tsingshan has 3 million tons of stainless-steel capacity at the Morowali site, which is made using nickel smelted from Indonesian ore. It’s not clear how much steel or nickel capacity was being utilized prior to Sunday’s halt. Tsingshan has separate facilities in other parts of Indonesia.

Nickel on the London Metal Exchange rose Wednesday, its first day of trading since Dec. 22. The metal gained 2.4% to $16,905 a ton.

Rising toll

There have been tense relations between local communities and Chinese workers and management at nickel plants. In January of this year, two people died in violent clashes at a plant belonging to another Chinese company.

The death toll from Sunday’s explosion climbed to 19 on Wednesday after one worker succumbed to heavy injuries, according to the Central Sulawesi regional police. Forty more remain in intensive care.

The fatalities included eight Chinese nationals, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said at a regular press briefing Wednesday in Beijing. China will work with Indonesia to deal with this accident, she said.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Manpower is investigating the cause of the disaster and will take legal steps against the company if it’s found to have violated work, health or safety regulations, state news agency Antara reported.

(By Fathiya Dahrul, Chandra Asmara and Claire Jiao)

Death toll at Indonesia smelter fire rises to 18, operation halted

Reuters | December 26, 2023 |

The nickel smelter furnace where fire broke out is located in Sulawesi (pictured) and it is owned by a unit of China’s Tsingshan Holding Group. (Reference image by Midori, Wikimedia Commons.)

The death toll from a fire at an Indonesian nickel smelter has risen to 18 as of Tuesday from 13 on Sunday, local police said, while operations at the smelter remain suspended as authorities investigate the cause of the incident.


Fire broke out early on Sunday morning at a nickel smelter furnace on Sulawesi island owned by Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS), a unit of China’s Tsingshan Holding Group.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest nickel producer, has banned unprocessed nickel ore exports while promoting major investments in smelting and processing, but several fatal accidents have hit the sector in recent years.

President Joko Widodo, while identifying nickel processing as a priority for economic development, has called for improved safety and enhanced monitoring of environmental standards.

Central Sulawesi police spokesperson Djoko Wienartono said on Tuesday that the victims included eight foreign workers, and that the police are still investigating the cause of the fire. China’s foreign ministry said four Chinese were among the initial 13 confirmed dead.

A spokesperson for the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park where the plant is located, Dedy Kurniawan, said on Tuesday that operations would remain suspended during the investigation.

(By Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Aneka Tambang sells shares of subsidiaries to world’s biggest EV battery company

Reuters | December 29, 2023 | 

Credit: Aneka Tambang

Indonesian miner Aneka Tambang has sold shares worth $467.18 million in two of its subsidiaries to a unit of the world’s biggest electric vehicle battery maker, China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL).


In a disclosure published late on Thursday, Aneka Tambang, known as Antam, said it made the sales to Ningbo Contemporary Brunp Lygend Co Ltd (CBL) through the latter’s Hong Kong unit. CBL is a holding subsidiary of CATL, according to its website.

The sales, which were completed on Thursday, mean CBL controls 49% of PT Sumberdaya Arindo and 60% of PT Feni Haltim.

The sales are part of an agreement to set up joint ventures to develop an electric vehicle “ecosystem” in Indonesia, the statement said, which includes a plan to build a high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plant to process nickel ore into materials used in batteries.

The government of Indonesia, home to the world’s largest nickel reserves, has set an ambitious target of producing some 600,000 EVs by 2030. That would be more than 100 times the number sold in Indonesia in the first half of 2023.

Companies like China’s Neta EV brand, Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors and South Korea’s Hyundai Motors have already invested in Indonesia’s burgeoning EV battery industry. The country is also wooing Tesla and BYD.

(By Stanley Widianto and Bernadette Christina; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)