Cheaper, more efficient ways to capture carbon

Date:

March 16, 2022

Source:

University of Colorado at Boulder

Summary:

Researchers have developed a new tool that could lead to more efficient and cheaper technologies for capturing heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere and converting them into beneficial substances, like fuel or building materials.

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University of Colorado Boulder researchers have developed a new tool that could lead to more efficient and cheaper technologies for capturing heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere and converting them into beneficial substances, like fuel or building materials. Such carbon capture technology may be needed at scale in order to limit global warning this century to 2.7 degrees F (1.5 Celsius) above pre-industrial temperatures and fend off catastrophic impacts of global climate change.

The scientists describe their technique in a paper published this month in the journal iSCIENCE.

The method predicts how strong the bond will be between carbon dioxide and the molecule that traps it, known as a binder. This electrochemical diagnosis can be easily applied to any molecule that is chemically inclined to bind with carbon dioxide, allowing researchers to identify suitable molecular candidates with which to capture carbon dioxide from everyday air.

"The Holy Grail, if you will, is to try to inch toward being able to use binders that can grab carbon dioxide from the air [around us], not just concentrated sources," said Oana Luca, co-author of the new study and assistant professor of chemistry. "Determining the strength of binders allows us to figure out whether the binding will be strong or weak, and identify candidates for future study for direct carbon capture from dilute sources."

The goal of carbon capture and storage technology is to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it safely for hundreds or thousands of years. But while it has been in use in the U.S. since the 1970s, it currently captures and stores a mere 0.1% of global carbon emissions annually. To help meet carbon emissions goals laid out by the IPCC, carbon capture and storage would have to rapidly increase in scale by 2050.

Current industrial facilities around the world rely on capturing carbon dioxide from a concentrated source, such as emissions from power plants. While these methods can bind a lot of carbon dioxide quickly and efficiently using large amounts of certain chemical binders, they are also extraordinarily energy intensive.

This method also is quite expensive at scale to take carbon dioxide and turn it into something else useful, such as carbonates, an ingredient in cement, or formaldehyde or methanol, which can be used as a fuel, according to Luca, fellow-elect of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).

Using electrochemical methods instead, such as those detailed in the new CU Boulder-led study, would free carbon capture facilities from being tied to concentrated sources, allowing them to exist almost anywhere.

Being able to easily estimate the strength of chemical bonds also enables researchers to screen for which binders will be best suited -- and offer a cheaper alternative to traditional methods -- for capturing and converting carbon into materials or fuel according to Haley Petersen, co-lead author on the study and graduate student in chemistry.

Creating chemical bonds

The science of chemistry is based on a few basic facts: One, that molecules are made of atoms, and two, that they are orbited by electrons. When atoms bond with other atoms, they form molecules. And when atoms share electrons with other atoms, they form what is called a covalent bond.

Using electricity, the researchers can activate these bonds by using an electrode to deliver an electron to a molecule. When they do that to an imidazolium molecule, like they did in this study, a hydrogen atom is removed, creating a gap in a carbon atom for another molecule to want to bond with it -- such as carbon dioxide.

However, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the kind of molecule that doesn't typically like to create new bonds.

"It's generally unreactive, and in order to react with it, you also have to bend it," said Luca. "So we're in a chemical space that hasn't really been probed before, for CO2 capture."

The method the researchers examines how good a whole family of carbenes (a specific type of molecule, containing a neutral carbon atom), that they can electrochemically generate, are at binding CO2.

"Just by looking at very simple molecules -- molecules that we can make, molecules that we can modify -- we can obtain a map of the energetics for electrochemical carbon capture. It is a small leap for now, but possibly a big leap down the line," said Luca.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE 2040434.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Colorado at Boulder. Original written by Kelsey Simpkins. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Haley A. Petersen, Abdulaziz W. Alherz, Taylor A. Stinson, Chloe G. Huntzinger, Charles B. Musgrave, Oana R. Luca. Predictive energetic tuning of C-Nucleophiles for the electrochemical capture of carbon dioxide. iScience, 2022; 25 (4): 103997 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.103997

University of Colorado at Boulder. "Cheaper, more efficient ways to capture carbon." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 March 2022.

LETTING FOLKS DRINK COFFEE IN THE LAB

Waste coffee grounds could someday help detect brain waves

by American Chemical Society

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

There's nothing like a steaming cup of joe to give your morning a quick boost. Now, there's yet another reason to love the beverage. Today, researchers report the first application of used coffee grounds as environmentally friendly electrode coatings for sensitive neurochemistry measurements. The material could eventually help scientists get a better handle on brain activity and detect minute levels of neurotransmitters.

The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Spent coffee grounds have previously been used to make porous carbon supercapacitors for energy storage. But now, new research led by principal investigator Ashley Ross, Ph.D., has taken recycled coffee waste in another, more biological direction. She and her team have demonstrated that electrodes coated with carbon from this waste can detect trace levels of biomolecules in vitro. According to Ross, this is the first example of residual coffee grounds being repurposed for biosensing applications.

"I saw papers about using spent grounds to produce porous carbon for energy storage, and I thought maybe we could use this conductive material in our neurochemistry detection work," says Ross. "And I also thought this would be a good excuse to buy lots of coffee for the lab!" Ross, who is at the University of Cincinnati, and several members of her team are self-professed coffee lovers.

The traditional microelectrodes that neuroscientists use are commonly made from carbon fiber—fine, solid carbon strands bundled together. Making them is typically an arduous and expensive process, involving multiple steps and harsh chemicals. Eventually, Ross wants to fabricate entire electrodes with carbon from coffee grounds because this type of approach would be inexpensive and environmentally friendly. As a first step toward realizing that goal, the researchers adapted the material from the grounds as a coating for conventional electrodes.

Kamya Lapsley, who was a summer student in Ross's lab and who is currently an undergraduate student at Kent State University, took this initial challenge on. She and other members of the lab dried used coffee grounds and heated them in a tube furnace at about 1,300 F. Next, they added the material to a potassium hydroxide solution to activate the carbon and open up holes in the structure. Then, the researchers heated the mixture again under nitrogen gas to remove any undesired byproducts. What was left was an inky slurry full of flecks of porous carbon. As a final step, the researchers diluted the sludge with water, into which they dipped the carbon fiber electrodes to coat them with a layer of porous carbon nearly a hundred times thinner than the diameter of a human hair.

The researchers compared the performance of coated and uncoated electrodes for sensing small quantities of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry. With this technique, they applied a rapidly varying voltage to the electrode to alternately oxidize and reduce dopamine. The technique is fast enough to detect subsecond neurotransmitter release, as would happen in the brain. The researchers found that electrodes coated with porous carbon reached oxidative current levels over three times higher than bare carbon fibers in the presence of dopamine, indicating that the coated electrode offered a more sensitive surface for dopamine detection. Not only does the porous structure allow more dopamine molecules to participate in the reaction because of the coating's large surface area, it also momentarily traps dopamine molecules in the crevices of the electrode, says Ross. These properties increase the sensitivity and allow the researchers to carry out faster measurements. The group is now exploring how these porous coatings impact the temporal resolution of the technique.

Next, the team will make carbon fiber electrodes from scratch with porous carbon from waste coffee grounds, which would give the electrodes uniform porosity not just on the surface, but also through and through. Ross predicts that this will boost their neurochemical detection abilities because an even larger total surface area of the electrode will be exposed to adsorb the dopamine molecules. At the same time, Ross plans to put the current coffee-coated electrodes to the test in the brains of live rats.

In the meantime, there will be no lack of starting materials to carry out the next stages of the project, for the entire lab seems to love their brew. "The grad students provided quite a bit of coffee grounds—more than we will ever need," says Ross. "My entire lab really loved this project."Chemists synthesize electrodes for accumulators from coffee grounds

More information: Deriving porous carbon from waste coffee grounds for sensitive dopamine detection with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, ACS Spring 2022. acs.digitellinc.com/acs/live/22/page/677

Provided by American Chemical Society 

How Spanish cinema hit the big time





Four Spaniards are tapped for an Oscar, -- animator Alberto Mielgo, Spain's Hollywood couple Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, and Basque composer Alberto Iglesias (AFP/LLUIS GENE)


Marie GIFFARD
Sun, March 20, 2022

With a Golden Bear for Spanish director Carla Simon and four compatriots nominated for Oscars, including superstars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, Spanish cinema has now begun to captivate a global audience.

When Bardem and Cruz, who have been married for over a decade, were both tapped for Oscars, the 53-year-old actor could hardly contain his excitement.

"The fact that (Penelope's) nomination was for a role in Spanish... seems really extraordinary, even historic in terms of the Spanish brand," he said in February.

Unlike other countries with a long and distinguished history of cinema, Spain has struggled to establish itself on the international stage.

So far, Luis Bunuel has been the only Spanish director to win the coveted Palme D'Or at Cannes Film Festival for his provocative 1961 feature "Viridiana".

But all that is changing, with Spanish cinema increasingly recognised for its contribution to the silver screen, the most recent being Carla Simon's triumph at this year's Berlinale where she took the top prize for "Alcarras" (2022), a Catalan drama about peach farmers.

And according to Variety magazine, Cruz is rumoured to be in the running for president of the jury at Cannes, an honour already bestowed upon the legendary Pedro Almodovar, by far Spain's best-known filmmaker.

Cruz herself is the only Spanish actress ever to win an Oscar, taking home the gong in 2009 for best supporting actress in the Woody Allen comedy "Vicky Cristina Barcelona".

And if she wins best actress at the Oscars later this month for Almodovar's "Parallel Mothers", it will be a coup for a film entirely "Made in Spain", whose soundtrack has also been nominated for best original score.

- Years of work by film schools -

The score was written by Basque composer Alberto Iglesias, who has worked with Almodovar for two decades on 13 of his films. This is the fourth time an Iglesias soundtrack has been nominated for an Oscar.

For him, there is "strong momentum" within Spanish cinema.

"There is an energy... it has to do with the film schools that have been working for a long time to create new filmmakers," he told AFP.

"It has been really difficult for Spanish cinema to cross the threshold and get into these big international festivals," explains Pilar Martinez-Vasseur, director of the Spanish Film Festival in the French city of Nantes.

Spanish films which have received acclaim abroad are often not identified as such, she said, pointing to the 2001 psychological thriller "The Others" starring Nicole Kidman which was directed by Spain's Alejandro Amenabar.

"In Spain, we still have the idea that Spanish cinema is bad, that it's a nest of communists, that filmmakers are pampered, they do nothing and get subsidies," she said, calling for greater support from the government.

Filmmaking in Spain receives far less state aid than in France, experts say.

Spanish cinema has had to "learn how to break into a globalised ecosystem," said Beatriz Navas who heads the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA), which is subsidised by the culture ministry.

"This hasn't happened overnight because you need some sort of 'greenhouse' environment where filmmakers can work with freedom," she told AFP.

"And the 'incubation time' needs to be sufficient for these productions to achieve the recognition and prestige they deserve."

- 'Spanish cinema's best moment' -

As well as Cruz, Bardem and Iglesias, Spain also has a fourth horse in the Oscar race in the shape of Alberto Mielgo's "The Windshield Wiper" which has been nominated for best animated short film.

"This is the best moment for Spanish cinema," said Jose Luis Rebordinos, director of the prestigious San Sebastian film festival.

"We are making a lot of cinema and audiovisual productions in Spain, as well as for streaming platforms which is bringing a lot of work so Spanish film technicians are getting better and better," he said.

Spain's Western-friendly landscapes have drawn Hollywood directors since the 1960s and is becoming an increasingly popular destination for filming series -- Netflix, which set up its first European studios in Madrid in 2019, scored huge hits with "Money Heist" and "Elite".

Last year, the government said it wanted Spain to become Europe's "audiovisual hub", pledging to inject 1.6 billion euros to expand the film and TV production sector by 30 percent by 2025.

"International critics are increasingly focusing on our cinematic output thanks to figures like Almodovar, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz," said Rebordinos.

"They are finding ways to draw more attention to Spanish cinema."

mig/hmw/bp/oho

Body composting takes root in US 'green' burial trend

Agence France-Presse 

© Provided by The Manila Times

 Return Home CEO Micah Truman holds a sample bag containing composted animal remains during a tour of the Return Home funeral home which specializes in human composting in Auburn, Washington on March 14, 2022. 

AFP PHOTO

'Dying better'

"It's like these people are teaching us to die better," Return Home founder and chief Micah Truman said as he showed AFP a warehouse-sized room with racks of metal containers referred to as "vessels," which hold remains during the 60-day, sealed decomposition process.

The space was brightly lit and upbeat music played. Loved ones who visit during those 60 days can pick songs celebrating the lives of those they have lost.

Bodies in vessels are not embalmed, and family members are invited to add flowers or compostable mementos to the straw and other natural ingredients used in the process.

The amount of organic material added to the vessels to help in the composting process is about triple the body weight of the human remains inside, resulting in hundreds of pounds of compost being produced.

No enzymes are added, the company said.

Sensors tracking moisture, temperature and air flow synched with a computer to optimize conditions for decomposition.

Halfway through the process, bones are removed and ground into fine pieces before being put back in the vessel to finish composting.

The result looks and feels like ordinary mulch.

Families can take as much or as little as they want, with the rest spread at "The Woodland" in Kent.

Local zoning rules restrict the land — which was once strewn with ruined cars, some scarred by bullets — from ever being built on.

Green burial

Body composting is part of an eco-friendly funeral trend gaining momentum around the world, according to Green Burial Council president Edward Bixby.

"Basically, it's going back to the earth as we came; dust to dust," said Bixby, who opened his first Destination Destiny natural burial cemetery five years ago in New Jersey and has expanded to ten US states.

The council has more than 400 members, some outside the United States, according to Bixby.

A single cremation, according to the Green Burial Council, burns about as much fuel as a full tank of a large sport utility vehicle.

Return Home body composting is priced at $5,000, on par with cremation. Traditional funerals can cost double or triple that.

Other green burial options include simply wrapping a body in a biodegradable shroud or putting it in a wooden box and burying it.

Silicon Valley-based Coeio sells an Infinity Burial Suit that contains mushroom mycelium in a recipe intended to "neutralize toxins found in the body and transfer nutrients to plant life."

Green burials come with a natural approach to death itself.

Loved ones can be involved with preparing bodies for burial, seeing the departed as being a part of life that continues on.

"Horror movies and things like that have made people afraid of death and dying," Bixby said.

"We have always had the ability to care for our loved ones in death, we just lost touch with it."



A demonstration "vessel" for the deceased is pictured (R) among the other vessels during a tour of the Return Home funeral home which specializes in human composting in Auburn, Washington on March 14, 2022 (AFP/Jason Redmond)

Spanish taxi drivers pick up refugees in Poland

Spanish taxi drivers volunteered to drive 40 hours to Poland and back to support with refugee evacuations.

Reuters has the full story here:

 

Out of Kharkiv

Doctor takes over David Beckham's

Instagram

Former English footballer David Beckham on Sunday handed over his Instagram account to Unicef.

In his Instagram Stories, Iryna, the Head of the Regional Perinatal Centre in Kharkiv, is showing what is being done to help mothers give birth. She is working 24/7 in bomb shelters, caring for newborn children and their parents, as well as moving boxes and providing emotional support.

You can see the posts on his profile by clicking on the profile picture icon.

Germany to 'fast-track' gas terminals as part of Qatar deal

Author: AFP|Update: 21.03.2022 

Qatar has insisted on long contracts because of the huge cost of investing in gas production / © AFP/File

Germany has committed to "fast track" the construction of two liquefied natural gas terminals as part of a new long-term deal with Qatar as it looks to reduce dependence on Russian gas, the Gulf state said Sunday.

Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck secured the accord during talks in Doha with its emir and energy minister who have been pressing European nations to strike long-term deals to guarantee their supplies.

European states have been forced to turn to Qatar in recent months as they seek an LNG alternative to Russian gas in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Qatar has insisted on long contracts because of the huge cost of investing in gas production. Already one of the world's top three LNG exporters, Qatar plans to increase production by 50 percent by 2027.

Qatar's energy ministry said that several years of talks with Germany had never led to "definitive agreements due to the lack of clarity on the long-term role of gas in Germany’s energy mix and the requisite LNG import infrastructure."

It added that in a meeting between Habeck and Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, "the German side confirmed that the German government has taken swift and concrete actions to fast-track the development of two LNG receiving terminals in Germany as a matter of priority to allow for the long-term import of LNG to Germany and that such scheme has the full support of the German government."

The two sides "agreed that their respective commercial entities would re-engage and progress discussions on long-term LNG supplies from Qatar to Germany."

In Berlin, a German spokeswoman confirmed a long-term partnership had been struck and that companies would "enter into the concrete contract negotiations", the spokeswoman said.

Habeck also held talks in Doha with the emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani before heading to the United Arab Emirates where he is expected to hold talks on oil supplies.

Ahead of his trip, Habeck told Deutschlandfunk radio that Germany had major concerns over securing supplies for next winter.

"If we do not obtain more gas next winter and if deliveries from Russia were to be cut then we would not have enough gas to heat all our houses and keep all our industry going," he warned.

Berlin has come in for criticism over its opposition to an immediate embargo being imposed on Russian energy supplies as a means of choking off Moscow's foreign earnings.

Germany believes a boycott could cause major economic damage as well as huge rises in energy prices.

Brazil Supreme Court judge lifts ban on messaging app Telegram


Telegram deliberately spreads its encryption keys and chat data on disparate servers around the world so governments cannot "intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression," it says on its website. 

(AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV) (Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)

Sun, March 20, 2022

The Supreme Court judge who had ordered messaging app Telegram blocked in Brazil reversed the ruling Sunday, after the tech company complied with an earlier decree to make changes to the platform.

"Considering that the (court's requested changes) were fully attended to, I revoke the decision to fully and completely suspend the operation of Telegram in Brazil," Judge Alexandre de Moraes wrote in a document released by the court.

Citing what he called Telegram's failure to comply with orders from Brazilian authorities and remove messages found to contain disinformation, Moraes had ordered the app blocked immediately in Brazil.

Following the suspension order, Telegram founder Pavel Durov apologized to the Supreme Court and blamed a "communication problem" that he said was due to misplaced emails.

He asked the court to postpone the order to allow time for Telegram to appoint a representative in Brazil and improve communications with the court. The judge on Saturday gave Telegram 24 hours to enact changes so he could lift the ban.

On Sunday, Moraes said the company informed him it had adopted several anti-disinformation measures, including the "manual" monitoring of the 100 most popular channels in Brazil.

It now also will tag specific posts as misleading, restrict several profiles that disseminated disinformation and promote verified information.

Friday's order to block the app throughout the country never actually went into effect and Telegram had continued to function normally throughout the weekend.

Mobile operators like TIM, however, were alerting customers via text message that the app would be blocked from Monday.

- 'Violated local laws' -

The judge had also asked for the removal of an August Telegram post by Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro in which he questioned, without evidence, the reliability of Brazil's electronic voting system, which has been in use since 1996.

By Saturday, the post had disappeared. "This message cannot be shown" because "it violated local laws," a notification said in its place.

Bolsonaro had called the app's suspension "inadmissible," saying it threatened the freedoms of Brazilians.

The judge "failed to act against the two or three people that according to him should be blocked, so he decided to affect 70 million people... What is at stake is our freedom," said Bolsonaro.

The kerfuffle came as far-right Bolsonaro, who has been gearing up to seek re-election in October, faces a slump in popularity.

Bolsonaro, who has had various posts blocked on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for violating their rules on misinformation, has been encouraging his base to follow him on Telegram.

With more than a million followers on the platform -- not including numerous fan groups with names like "Reelect Bolsonaro 2022" -- he is counting on the app to rally his base.

The government had appealed against the suspension order, with Attorney General Bruno Bianco contending that Moraes's ruling was "disproportionate" and should be reversed.

But Moraes said Telegram had repeatedly refused to comply with rulings and requests from police, the Superior Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court itself.

That includes a Supreme Court-ordered investigation into allegations against the Bolsonaro administration of using official communication channels to spread disinformation, he said.

Bolsonaro on Friday had tweeted a link to subscribe to his channel on Telegram.

"Our Telegram informs people every day of many important actions of national interest, which many regrettably omit," he said.

"Welcome, and share the truth."

Dubai-based Telegram, founded in 2013, is installed in some 53 percent of Brazilian cell phones and is the fastest-growing platform in the country, according to election officials.

The app has made its refusal to cooperate with the authorities part of its brand.

Telegram deliberately spreads its encryption keys and chat data on disparate servers around the world so governments cannot "intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression," it says on its website.

mel/yow/caw/sw

How NFT technology can be 'a tool for decolonization'

After their request to borrow a sculpture created by their ancestors was denied, a Congo-based artist collective found a different way to repatriate it.


A Belgian colonial postcard from 1897, the year the Royal Museum for Central Africa opened in Brussels


Somewhere in a decentralized, virtual realm lives a newly minted non-fungible token (NFT), a unique digital asset that can be sold or traded using cryptocurrency.

It features a virtual rendering of a sculpture crafted in 1931 by Congo’s Pende people. Suspended somewhere between fantasy and reality, the image rotates counterclockwise against a black background, revealing a new dimension with every turn.

In the physical world, the deeply spiritual sculpture has been out of its source community’s reach for years — and still is.

History of rebellion

The physical sculpture is made of wood, rather than the bits of 1s and 0s analyzed by computers to generate images. It represents a history of rebellion for the Pende people, according to Renzo Martens, a Danish curator who helped create the NFT.

The project was led by the Congolese Plantation Workers Art League (CATPC), an artist collective that lives and works on a plantation owned by the 400-brand multinational consumer goods company Unilever in Lusanga, Congo.

Featuring meticulously carved downcast eyes and a rigid stance, the statue depicts Maximilien Balot, a Belgian colonial agent sent to brutally conscript members of the Pende community to work as unpaid laborers at a subsidiary owned by modern day Unilever.

Watch video 03:04 Colonial Belgium abducted children with African mothers

Balot was slain in a fight with a Pende man in 1931. After his death, the Pende people created the sculpture to capture and control his spirit as an aid in their fight against Belgian colonial rule.

Although Balot’s visage was wrought from biodegradable material that should have deteriorated over time, it has been preserved in the physical realm.

The sculpture first changed hands in 1972, when it was purchased for around €109 ($120) by tribal arts collector and City University of New York professor Herbert Weiss on a trip to Congo. Weiss later sold it to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), where it is still on display today.
Tech inspiration

The idea to turn the statue into an NFT emerged in 2020 after an unsuccessful attempt by artists Mathieu Kasiama and Cedart Tamasala to formally loan it.

The process was recorded in a documentary called Plantations and Museums, which tracked the CAPTC's attempt to repossess the Balot sculpture to display temporarily at the White Cube, a community art gallery on the plantation.

In Plantations and Museums, when the artists explained their desire to borrow the statue for temporary display to the VMFA's head curator, they were met with ambivalence.

"You've raised a very interesting suggestion," the curator answered.

A year and a half later, the VMFA sent the collective a letter formally denying their request.

Martens told DW the VMCA said the White Cube was not suited to display the piece and gave no answer as to whether the sculpture would be available in the future.

The VMFA did not respond to DW's phone calls for comment.
Making an NFT

The pathway to NFT-fueled repatriation moved much faster than the team’s back and forth with the museum.

Making an NFT can be as easy as drawing a photo on a sketch app, or as hard as layering 10 separately drawn digital images.

The true beauty of an NFT is in its code, which is unique and cannot be faked or copied.

To get this individual string of data, an NFT must be converted into a digital asset stored on the blockchain, a system that records transitions across several computers.

A Benin Bronze statue is returned to Nigeria at a 2021 ceremony at Jesus College in Cambridge

The CAPTC deployed the help of a photographer, who shot original photos of the sculpture, and a group of Berlin-based artists, who arranged them, to create the Balot NFT.

Just an image

The digital repatriation was completed without permission from the VMFA.

The museum criticized the group’s creative rendering of the piece, calling it "unacceptable and unprofessional" and claiming that “its use for financial gain” violated the museum's open-access polic

Watch video 04:33 NFT Fraud and Counterfeiting

But Marten says it's all fair use.

"The only thing we took from the museum by making this NFT is its images and photographs — it's simply an image of sculpture," he said.
'A tool for decolonization'

Each time an NFT is created or exchanged, it is recorded on an unalterable ledger via the blockchain.

So, when an artist mints an NFT, they permanently enmesh themselves in the digital chain of creation. Their role in its construction cannot be erased. In this way, an NFT can become "a tool for decolonialization," said Martens.

According to Tochukwu Macfoy, who directs content for Design Week Lagos, an annual Lagos-wide exhibition for creators, NFT-initiated repatriation can be "a chance to own all the conversation."

This artifact, previously housed in France, will be returned to Nigeria.

In January, a group of artists launched the Benin Bronze NFT Cultural Exchange Project. Although the physical group of plaques, heads and sculptures looted from the Kingdom of Benin (modern Nigeria) by the British Royal Army in 1897 now rest in museums and private collections throughout the world, the group of creators hoped their project would bring awareness to their absence in Nigeria.

In early March, the Smithsonian Institution announced that it would return most of its Benin Bronze collection to Nigeria.

Despite the criticism that the CAPTC received from the VMFA for their first digital repatriation, the collective has not been discouraged.

"Art was created as a way of fighting the plantation system," Kiasama said in Plantations and Museums.

Martens says that they plan to mint more NFTs of the community’s artifacts in the future. The proceeds from these digital sales will be used to fund purchases of real-world plantation land where the CAPTC and other members of the community still live and work.


GERMAN EXPRESSIONISTS AND COLONIALISM
The primitivist art movement
Bright, contrasting colors, simplified forms, and a return to a supposedly simple life untouched by industrialization are among the features of primitivism. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Still Life with Flowers and Sculptures" (1912) is a primary example. In Germany, this style was at the height of popularity when imperial Germany was a colonial power.
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Edited by: Clare Roth

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Morocco's envoy to Spain returns after Madrid's shift on Western Sahara

Karima Benyaich, recalled by Rabat last year, is back in Madrid after Spain changed its policy on Western Sahara. But Algeria, which opposes Spain's backing of Morocco's plans for the region, has now recalled its envoy.

Morocco has sent its ambassador back to Madrid after a 10-month recall

Morocco's ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, returned to her post in Madrid on Sunday, saying that her country appreciated the backing that Spain now gives to its proposals to turn the Western Saharan area into an autonomous province under Moroccan sovereignty.

Speaking to the EFE news agency shortly after her arrival in the Spanish capital, Benyaich said that "a new stage, a new page is opening in the relations between both countries, and it will be an important stage."

Benyaich was recalled from Madrid in May last year amid differences on the issue with the Spanish government. Madrid had previously wanted a referendum on the future of the former Spanish colony, which has largely been under Moroccan control since 1975, when Spain withdrew.

Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front independence movement in Western Sahara, has now in its turn recalled its ambassador to Spain over Madrid's shift in policy, calling it an "abrupt U-turn.'' 

Protests by Sahrawi activists in Spain took place in December 2020, as here in Granada

Historic turnaround

The territory of Western Sahara, situated to the south of Morocco, has been disputed for decades, with the region's Algeria-backed Polisario Front campaigning for independence and the right to self-determination for the ethnic Saharawi people.

On Friday, Spain gave its support to Moroccan proposals to offer Western Sahara autonomy within Morocco, going against its former policy — shared with most countries — of advocating an independence referendum for the region.

According to the Rabat government, Spain said it regarded the proposals to be "serious, credible and realistic."

The shift by Spain seems likely to end a long-running dispute between Madrid and Rabat. In the course of the spat, Benyaich was recalled to Rabat in May 2021 after Polisario Front leader Brahim Gali was treated in a Spanish hospital for COVID-19.

Rabat also reacted to Gali's reception in Spain by allowing upward of 10,000 people to cross its border into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta, creating a humanitarian crisis.

tj/fb (EFE, Reuters, dpa, AP)

Green works for Germany — and Roma — in European Parliament

Romeo Franz worked for several years for civil rights within Germany before representing the country in the European Parliament. He keeps a close eye on Balkan affairs and remains an advocate for Sinti and Roma rights.

As the chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Bosnia-Herzegovina, the German Green Romeo Franz keeps a close eye on politics in the Balkans, and he said Russia's invasion of Ukraine had not distracted from that. Quite the opposite, he said: President Vladimir Putin has an interest in further conflict and unrest in Europe. 

"After the attack on Ukraine, it is clear that Putin wants to create a security order in Europe according to his tastes," said Franz, a Sinto from Kaiserslautern who was elected in 2018. "He is a major supporter of the secession politics of the Serbs under Milorad Dodik." 

Serbian leader Dodik has repeated his threat to declare Republika Srpska independent from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Russia's government has expressed support.

'Important and right'

Franz came to international politics after years of working for civil rights within Germany. He said working at the European and international levels had broadened his perspective. He said a discussion while speaking with Black students in Washington, DC, had led him to think about how diverse groups can be united by similar experiences of racism. "We need an alliance of the discriminated against," Franz said. "That doesn't mean forgetting the specific forms of racism and disadvantaging — on the contrary, it means, with each other's help, making visible the systemic patterns with the ready knowledge of diverse groups."

Franz surprised many people with his decision to enter politics a few years ago. He said he had considered it long ago, but life had given him other tasks: In 2012, he founded the Hildegard-Lagrenne foundation, which uses education to combat antiziganism, or discrimination against Sinti and Roma. He traveled to schools to help deconstruct common racist slurs.

In addition to his work in international politics and civil rights in Germany, Franz is also an accomplished violinist: His "Mare Manuschenge" ("For Our People") is played at Berlin's Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered Under National Socialism. That was a great honor, he said, and a great responsibility. He wanted to do right by the musical traditions of Sinti and Roma.

Preserving Sinti and Roma art and culture is also an important part of Franz's political work, and he hopes to see future generations engage themselves in such efforts, as well. "I want our young people to know that political work has a direct influence on our daily life and on which values we define together as important and right," he said. "Through politics, we can not only demand equal participation — but also take responsibility for it."

Franz would like to see an "alliance of the discriminated against"

Fighting racist stereotypes

Franz still laughs at the shocked looks his fellow members of the European Parliament gave him when he first showed up to work in a mobile home. Some deputies even asked him if he was trying to reproduce a stereotype. "There is no reason for me to disown my culture," he said. "That would be a capitulation to the thoughts of others, and there is no question of that for me."

Battling racist stereotypes and violence is at the forefront of Franz's work in helping put together a strategy for the inclusion and participation of Sinti and Roma in the European Union. He wants a legal basis for the equal participation of Roma communities. "There will be no process as long as the EU lets this remain voluntary," he said. "We want something tangible because only something put into law has weight in real life, too."

Franz said the European Commission had been slow to take such action. On one side, it can be complicated to involve communities in such a process, he said; on the other, conservative politicians often refrain from such topics.

Mehmet Daimagüler was recently named Germany's first federal antiziganism commissioner. Franz said this new position was important to helping the government achieve a comprehensive and effective strategy to increase inclusion and participation. "It is a sad truth that antiziganism is still a part of everyday culture in spite of the heavy heritage of the genocide of Sinti and Roma," Franz said. "Mehmet Daimagüler has the necessary expertise and political experience to bring this issue more visibility."

This article was originally written in German