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Chemical and Biological Sciences

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Geo-inspired Separation of Rare-earth Elements Research Highlights

Understanding Rare Earth Element Adsorption

Theoretical exploration of solvation phenomena of bare rare-earth (RE) cations in room-temperature ionic-liquid (RTIL) to visualize the solvation mechanism of RE cations in RTIL at the molecular level.

RE complex formation schematic

Batch Scale Production of 3D Printed Extraction Sorbents

A cost-effective modification to a desktop resin 3D printer was demonstrated to produce polymeric ionic liquid (PIL) extraction devices.

Schematic of miniaturized platform

Mechanistic Understanding of Rare-earth Element (REE) Capture

MCM-22 synthesis with varying Si:Al ratios is a model aluminosilicate for ytterbium (Yb) capture and also serves as a synthetic clay mimic to obtain in-depth mechanistic understanding of the capture.

REE capture graphic

Interlayer space tuning in MCM-22 type layered zeolites

A first-principles analysis of pillaring in layered zeolitic MCM-22 type materials was carried alongside experimental characterization of pillared MCM-22 variants.

Pillaring visuals

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