Baltic Dry Index. 2352 +117 Brent Crude 130.46
Spot Gold 2055 Wheat 12.46
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 09/03/22 World 449,996,959
Deaths 6,036,320
John Kenneth Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.
Economic lunatics now rule in the USA, Canada, UK, EU and just about everywhere. Get ready for economic chaos, soaring food price inflation, recession or worse, massive debt defaults, unemployment, and rising global social disorder.
At worst, economic madness could lead into World War Three.
At best, global trade disruption and a massive drop in everyone’s standard of living, Fed protected billionaires excepted.
Below, Washington, London and Brussels cut off their nose despite their face.
Crude jumps on U.S. Russian oil ban, Asian shares wobble
March 9, 2022 4:32 AM GMT
SHANGHAI, March 9 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices jumped again on Wednesday while Asian stocks struggled for footing as investors assessed the impact of the worsening conflict in Ukraine and a new U.S. ban on Russian oil.
The price of a barrel of crude, already on the march higher in January on supply worries and expectations of a strengthening global economic recovery, has rocketed upward since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Oil is now roughly double its early December low.
Risking even higher U.S. fuel prices that could curb economic growth, President Joe Biden on Tuesday imposed an immediate ban on Russian oil and other energy imports in retaliation for the invasion, amid strong support from American voters and lawmakers.
The ban caps sweeping U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Moscow for launching the largest war in Europe since World War Two. Russian strikes have targeted Ukrainian cities and killed hundreds of civilians. read more
Britain also announced it will phase out imports of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022. read more
"The oil shock by nature is an accruing one, not a one-off, and the potential for the market to hit $150 before returning to $100 is easier for investors to digest," said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
"Putting in force sanctions without first developing surrogate supply contingencies risks Brent crude (going) much higher."
Global benchmark Brent was last trading at $131.39 per barrel, up 2.66% on the day but still off a peak of $139.13 touched on Monday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 2.19% at $126.41 per barrel
----In equity markets, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was down 0.26%, as a reversal in Chinese shares erased earlier gains.
China's blue-chip CSI300 index (.CSI300) was down 1.27% after inflation data reflected a combination of soft domestic demand and high commodity prices, and as the country continued to report rising numbers of coronavirus cases. read more
In Hong Kong, where infections have surged to record highs, the Hang Seng (.HSI) was down more than 2%. read more
But broader regional losses were kept in check by gains elsewhere, with Australia's resource-heavy ASX 200 (.AXJO) up 0.85%. In Tokyo, the Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.3%.
----Wobbly share price moves in Asia followed another day in the red on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 0.56%, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 0.72% and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 0.28%.
"Markets remain volatile, unable to confidently price implications from the news flow given the complex state of the global economy," said Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank.
More
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-03-09/
U.S. Retirement Funds, Heavy on Stocks, Brace for Losses
March 7, 2022 5:30 am ET
Volatile stock markets are eroding the retirement savings of America’s teachers and firefighters after public pension systems ended last year with equity holdings at a 10-year high.
Public pension funds had a median 61% of their assets in stocks as of Dec. 31, up from 54% 10 years ago, according to Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service. Since then, the Russia-Ukraine War and expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this month have battered equity prices, reducing those holdings by billions of dollars.
At the nation’s largest pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, total reported holdings have fallen to $475 billion as of March 2 from $482 billion at the end of January. The S&P 500’s total return was minus 2.71% during the same period. Roughly half of the California worker fund is in stocks.
The situation highlights public retirement funds’ enduring dependence on the stock market and the potential impact on local government services and municipal-bond prices if losses continue. Smaller retirement systems tend to rely even more heavily on stocks than larger ones, which are more likely to seek returns from private-market assets like infrastructure and private equity.
U.S. state and local government pension funds control more than $4 trillion in public-worker retirement savings but will need hundreds of billions of additional dollars to cover promised future benefits. Over the past 12 years, blockbuster stock performance has swelled pension coffers, bringing state and local governments closer to being able to cover those liabilities and taking some of the pressure off taxpayers already burdened by high pension costs.
A downturn, however, could ultimately squeeze state and local budgets. That is because when pension-fund returns fall short, the workers and government employers that pay into them end up helping to make up the shortfall. Annual pension contributions are already a drag on the finances of some cities and states, leaving less money for operations and debt payments and leading to credit-rating downgrades.
Research firm Municipal Market Analytics views a sustained market correction as the biggest threat to state and local general-obligation-bond prices.
“State pensions often have an allocation to equities that is greater than the size of [the states’] annual budgets, so a correction in equity prices can ultimately have an outsize impact on the state,” said Municipal Market Analytics partner Matt Fabian.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-retirement-funds-heavy-on-stocks-brace-for-losses-11646601597
Carmakers face soaring metal costs with Russian supplies at risk
March 8, 2022 11:49 AM GMT
----Russia's invasion of Ukraine is ramping up the price of metals used in cars, from aluminium in the bodywork to palladium in catalytic converters to the high-grade nickel in electric vehicle batteries, and drivers are likely to foot the bill.
While metals have not been the target of Western sanctions yet, some shippers and autoparts suppliers are already steering clear of Russian goods, putting more pressure on carmakers already reeling from a chip shortage and higher energy prices.
"So what happens from here?" asked Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis (STLA.MI), the world's fourth-biggest automaker, when speaking to reporters last week.
"First, what happens is that we have an escalation of cost that comes from raw materials and energy that is going to put more pressure on the business model," he said.
Aluminium and palladium both hit record highs on Monday while nickel , which is also used to make stainless steel, crossed the $100,000-a-tonne level for the first time ever on Tuesday. read more
Andreas Weller, chief executive of Aludyne, which makes aluminium and magnesium die-cast parts for automakers, said his European business has seen a 60% rise in the cost of aluminium over the past four months, as well as soaring energy bills.
With annual sales of $1.2 billion and a surge of costs in the "hundreds of millions of dollars", Weller, whose company is based in Southfield, Michigan, said he has been forced to ask customers to pay more than the prices already agreed.
----Consumers are already paying for the chip shortage as it has pushed car inventories down and prices up - even before higher metals prices feed through to the forecourt.
According to consultancies LMC and J.D. Power, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in the United States was $44,460 in February, up 18.5% from the same month in 2021.
German carmakers such as Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and BMW have already been hit by Russia's invasion of Ukraine as it has forced makers of wire harnesses in the west of the country to halt production. A wire harness is a vital set of parts which neatly bundle up to 5 km (3.1 miles) of cables in the average car - and Ukraine is a key supplier. read more
And when it comes to metals, Russia companies are major suppliers to Germany. In 2020, they accounted for 44% of Germany's nickel imports, 41% of its titanium, a third of its iron, and 18% of its palladium.
With production of 108 million tonnes last year, Russia is the world's fifth-largest producer of iron ore, according to Credit Suisse, supplying European steelmakers who now face higher prices and possible difficulties procuring the metal.
More
‘There’s just no way’: Analysts say alternative supplies wouldn’t be able to fully replace Russian oil
While there are alternatives to Russian oil, they would be insufficient or difficult logistically if the U.S. and its allies were to ban Russian energy imports, analysts said Tuesday.
“There’s just no way even OPEC+ and even combined Iran and Venezuela could make up for it,” Vandana Hari, founder of energy intelligence firm Vanda Insights, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating as the U.S. and its allies weigh banning Russian oil and natural gas imports. Oil prices spiked to highs not seen since 2008, though later pared those gains. There was also concern that Russia could retaliate by cutting natural gas supplies to Europe.
To be sure, some Russian capacity could be replaced, Hari said.
Russia exports about 5 million barrels of crude oil per day, according to the International Energy Agency. Of that, Hari said about 2 million could be replaced if OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates “were able to simultaneously stretch themselves to their maximum capacity.”
Hari said, however, a lot of the spare capacity within OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, is also Russian.
The problem is OPEC+ would have to “reopen” their production quota system and it “just does not seem inclined to do anything of that sort just yet,” she said. Any cuts or increases to the output of OPEC+ countries are measured against a baseline — the higher that number, the more oil a country is allowed to pump.
Regina Mayor, KPMG’s U.S. national sector leader of energy and natural resources, also added that OPEC+ has been “incredibly disciplined around how they return crude to the market.”
“There are other sources of oil supply. It’s just really questionable about how quickly they can come online, the logistics of getting them to where they’re actually needed,” she told CNBC on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, the U.S. was reportedly also in discussions with Venezuela to lift sanctions on its oil, as it sources for alternatives to Russia.
But even if those sanctions were lifted, Hari said that would only free up another 100,000 barrels a day from Venezuela — “certainly nothing that would come even close to offsetting the disruption in Russian supplies.
More
Finally, about that Great Big US, UK, NATO, Ukraine War Error.
“What is special about Ukraine and does it matter?”
February 16, 2022 by Ray Payne
How the nation of Ukraine ranks:
1st) in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;
2nd) place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;
3rd) largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;
4th) largest producer of potatoes in the world;
5th) largest rye producer in the world;
5th) place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);
8th) place in the world in wheat exports;
9th) place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;
16th) place in the world in cheese exports. Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.
Ukraine is an industrialized country:
1st) in Europe in ammonia production;
2-?) Europe’s and 4th largest natural gas pipeline system in the world (142.5 bln cubic meters of gas throughput capacity in the EU);
3rd) largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;
3rd) place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);
3rd) place in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;
3rd) largest iron exporter in the world
4th) largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;
4th) world’s largest manufacturer of rocket launchers;
4th) place in the world in clay exports
4th) place in the world in titanium exports
8th) place in the world in exports of ores and concentrates;
9th) place in the world in exports of defence industry products;
10th) largest steel producer in the world (32.4 million tons).
https://veteranweb.asn.au/news/what-is-special-about-ukraine-and-does-it-matter/
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
BHP flags 'spillover effect' of commodities surge as nickel price doubles
March 8, 202211:35 AM GMT
March 8 (Reuters) - Mining group BHP (BHP.AX) warned on Tuesday of the impact of surging commodity prices on already skyrocketing inflation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, while nickel trading was suspended in London after prices more than doubled.
Oil, metal and other commodities prices have soared as fighting in Ukraine has intensified. Oil rose past $126 a barrel on Tuesday, while the London Metal Exchange halted nickel trading after prices of the stainless steel ingredient surged above $100,000 per tonne. read more
"We have seen hundreds of percentage increases of prices on a range of commodities," BHP Group Chief Executive Mike Henry said at a conference in Sydney. "That is going to have a spillover economic effect on inflation, potentially on global growth."
Consumer brands such as Starbucks (SBUX.O), Burger King parent Restaurant Brands International Inc (QSR.TO), McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) and Woolworths have all flagged rising cost pressures this year.
Inflation has been running at a 40-year high in the United States and hit record highs in the euro zone.
Speaking at the same conference as Henry, Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO James Gorman urged the U.S. central bank to be cautious about raising interest rates following the invasion, though he said failing to lift them enough was also a threat.
"The Fed has a real dilemma now," he said. "Unambiguously inflation is on the rise and it is not transient." The outbreak of war meant "the problem just got bigger, not smaller. My bidding is the Fed will raise very methodically now. No surprises up or down."
"The worst thing that can happen is the war recedes ... but inflation's raging (because) the Fed didn't do enough."
More
Shoppers Scramble for Staples as the Food Fallout From the War in Ukraine Spreads Around the World
March 8, 2022 4:34 AM EST
The shockwaves in global crop markets from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are now spreading to store shelves.
Worries about surging sunflower oil prices triggered heavy buying over the weekend in Turkey, as footage of citizens trying to grab tins of cheaper oil at one store went viral. In Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, prices for some unsubsidized bread have jumped in the past week.
The war has already driven wheat prices 70% higher in Chicago this year and is threatening to upend global food trade. Russia and Ukraine are vital suppliers of grains, vegetable oil and fertilizers, which means that supply disruptions will be felt all over the world. Wheat prices have surpassed levels last seen during the 2008 global food crisis —which helped spark widespread protests—and a United Nations index of food prices hit a record in February.
The shockwaves in global crop markets from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are now spreading to store shelves.
---- The war has already driven wheat prices 70% higher in Chicago this year and is threatening to upend global food trade. Russia and Ukraine are vital suppliers of grains, vegetable oil and fertilizers, which means that supply disruptions will be felt all over the world. Wheat prices have surpassed levels last seen during the 2008 global food crisis—which helped spark widespread protests—and a United Nations index of food prices hit a record in February.
More
https://time.com/6155752/ukraine-war-food-prices-inflation/
Wheat Settles at All-Time High as War Paralyzes Ukraine Trade
Mon, March 7, 2022, 10:40 PM
(Bloomberg) -- Chicago wheat settled at the highest price on record as Russia’s intensifying war in Ukraine cuts off supplies from one of the world’s leading breadbaskets.
Benchmark futures climbed by the exchange limit of 85 cents, or 7%, to close at $12.94 a bushel. That builds on a massive surge of 41% last week, the biggest gain in data spanning six decades. The Paris contract for wheat breached an all-time high after jumping as much as 14%.
Wheat is a crucial food staple and surging prices will pile pressure on government budgets and add to global hunger. Futures are near an all-time intraday high and have reached levels last seen in 2008 during the global food-price crisis, surpassing highs that helped contribute to the Arab Spring a decade ago.
The gains stand in contrast to the cash market, where some buyers are balking at the lofty prices as traders try to get a handle on the war’s impact.
“So much remains unknown,” Jacqueline Holland, an analyst at Farm Futures, said by email. “Will the Black Sea market be accessible to the outside world not just in the next three or four months, but for the next eighteen months?”
Meanwhile, U.S. wheat farmers are worried about drought and China is facing historically bad farming conditions.
“Talk that the wheat crop is China is not good is new, and supportive for prices,” Naomi Blohm, senior market adviser at Total Farm Marketing in West Bend, Wisconsin, said in a note.
Ukraine and Russia together account for more than a quarter of global trade of wheat, used in bread and noodles to livestock feed. The conflict has closed major ports in Ukraine, and severed logistics and transport links. Trade with Russia has also been stifled by the complexity of navigating sanctions and soaring insurance and freight costs.
Commodities from energy to metals and agriculture have surged since Russia’s invasion, fueling inflationary pressure worldwide and posing new challenges for monetary policy. The enormous gains for wheat pushed CME Group Inc. to increase its trading limits for the crop.
Food Costs
Food costs have already risen to an all-time peak, according to the United Nations, and are set to go even higher, deepening woes of importers.
Unsubsidized bread prices are creeping higher in Egypt, the world’s top wheat importer. The government has been considering lifting the costs of subsidized loaves that millions of citizens consume.
The invasion will also deter Ukrainian spring planting of crops like corn and sunflower that would typically begin soon and may hamper winter-grain yields, extending the supply shock on the global market.
Along with soaring benchmark wheat, most-active futures tied to hard red winter wheat settled at $12.515 a bushel, the highest in almost 14 years. In Minneapolis, spring wheat used for bagels and pizza dough rose as much as 5.2% to the priciest level since 2008. Corn and soybeans in Chicago settled lower while soybean oil rose.
Traders will be watching crop reports due this week from both the U.S. and Brazil for comment about the impact of Russia’s attack on Ukraine on crops.
More
https://news.yahoo.com/wheat-climbs-nearer-record-ukraine-010300415.html
AVIAN FLU CONTINUES TO SPREAD THROUGH THE U.S.
Mar. 7, 2022
Agri-Pulse
reports:
A deadly poultry disease has spread to more states.
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
said Sunday it has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza
in a commercial mixed species flock in Charles Mix County, South Dakota.
The news comes after APHIS confirmed HPAI in
Missouri on Friday and in Maryland on Saturday.
The Missouri detection happened in Stoddard County
near the Arkansas, Kentucky and Illinois borders. Some 240,000 broilers will be
depopulated at the facility. HPAI was detected in a flock of commercial layer
chickens in Cecil County, Maryland.
All told, the disease has now hit nearly 1.9 million
chickens and turkeys across the country, a number that will only go up once
flock sizes of the Maryland and South Dakota confirmations are reported. No
human HPAI cases have been detected in the United States, and USDA is
encouraging consumers to fully cook poultry and eggs to 165 ˚F to kill bacteria
and viruses.
By the way: HPAI isn't the only disease in
the news; China has reported new detections of African Swine Fever. According
to USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, the disease was detected in February in
western China.
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/140061
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Even mild Covid is linked to brain damage, scans show
Published Mon, Mar 7 2022 2:47 PM EST Updated Mon, Mar 7 2022 3:33 PM EST
During at least the first few months following a coronavirus infection, even mild cases of Covid-19 are associated with subtle tissue damage and accelerated losses in brain regions tied to the sense of smell, as well as a small loss in the brain’s overall volume, a new British study finds. Having mild Covid is also associated with a cognitive function deficit.
These are the striking findings of the new study led by University of Oxford investigators, one that leading Covid researchers consider particularly important because it is the first study of the disease’s potential impact on the brain that is based on brain scans taken both before and after participants contracted the coronavirus.
“This study design overcomes some of the major limitations of most brain-related studies of Covid-19 to date, which rely on analysis and interpretation at a single time point in people who had Covid-19,” said Dr. Serena S. Spudich, a neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
The research, which was published Monday in Nature, also stands out because the lion’s share of its participants apparently had mild Covid — by far, the most common outcome of coronavirus infections. Most of the brain-related studies in this field have focused on those with moderate to severe Covid.
Gwenaëlle Douaud, an associate professor at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford and the paper’s lead author, said that the excess loss of brain volume she and her colleagues observed in brain scans of hundreds of British individuals is equivalent to at least one extra year of normal aging.
“It is brain damage, but it is possible that it is reversible,” she said. “But it is still relatively scary because it was in mildly infected people.”
Douaud and her team relied on a rich data source: the United Kingdom Biobank. Before the Covid pandemic began, this mammoth database already had on hand tens of thousands of brain MRIs of people in Britain, along with responses to surveys about their diets and lifestyles and results from cognitive function tests.
The investigators focused on 401 people between 51 and 81 years old who had tested positive for Covid according to clinical data linked to the Biobank study. They were invited back for a second brain scan, which they received an average of about five months after contracting the coronavirus. Covid was apparently mild in the vast majority of these participants; only 15 of them were hospitalized with the disease.
The researchers compared these pairs of scans to those of a control group of 384 U.K. Biobank participants who had not tested positive for Covid and were matched according to the Covid-positive group’s rates of obesity, blood pressure, smoking and diabetes, as well as their socioeconomic status, age and sex.
---- The overall brain volume in people with Covid declined by an extra 0.3 percent over those without the disease.
Older participants experienced all these excess brain-related declines more profoundly.
The study offers no indication whether a Covid vaccination would mitigate the risk of such changes. The participants tested positive for the disease between March 2020 and April 2021, before the vaccines were widely available in the U.K.
On cognitive function tests, those who had Covid demonstrated a slower ability to process information and had lower marks on what’s known as executive function, which is an umbrella measure of the brain’s ability to manage complex tasks.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/07/even-mild-covid-is-linked-to-brain-damage-scans-show.html
As virus cases go from 1 to 24,000, New Zealand changes tack
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Back in August, New Zealand’s government put the entire nation on lockdown after a single community case of the coronavirus was detected.
On Tuesday, when new daily cases hit a record of nearly 24,000, officials told hospital workers they could help out on understaffed COVID-19 wards even if they were mildly sick themselves.
It was the latest sign of just how radically New Zealand’s approach to the virus has shifted, moving from elimination to suppression and now to something approaching acceptance as the omicron variant has taken hold.
Experts say New Zealand’s sometimes counterintuitive actions have likely saved thousands of lives by allowing the nation to mostly avoid earlier, more deadly variants and buying time to get people vaccinated. The nation of 5 million has reported just 65 virus deaths since the pandemic began.
But virus hospitalizations have been rapidly rising, hitting a record of more than 750 on Tuesday and putting strain on the system.
Across the country, the explosion in cases has left people stunned. Just a month ago, case numbers were around 200 per day. Now, the outbreak is affecting everyone from frontline workers to lawmakers.
Opposition Leader Christopher Luxon became the highest profile politician yet to announce he was infected on Monday, saying he felt fine and would continue working from home.
One factor that hastened the outbreak was the return of thousands of university students to campuses around the country last month.
More
Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.
NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some other useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.
A sieve for molecules
Date: March 7, 2022
Source: Ruhr-University Bochum
Summary: Scientists have long tried to use graphene, which is composed of carbon, as a kind of sieve. But this material doesn't have any pores. Now, a team has found an alternative material which comes with pores from the outset.
Scientists have long tried to use graphene, which is composed of carbon, as a kind of sieve. But this material doesn't have any pores. Now, a team has found an alternative material which comes with pores from the outset.
Researchers from Bielefeld, Bochum and Yale have succeeded in producing a layer of two-dimensional (2D) silicon dioxide. This material contains natural pores and can therefore be used like a sieve for molecules and ions. Scientists have been looking for such materials for a long time because they could for example help desalinate seawater and be used in new types of fuel cells. The team outlines the fabrication process of bilayer silicates in the journal Nano Letters, published online on 19 January 2022. The study was jointly conducted by the teams headed by Dr. Petr Dementyev from Bielefeld University, Professor Anjana Devi from Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Professor Eric Altman from Yale University.
Naturally occurring pores in the crystal lattice
When two-dimensional materials are pierced with high precision, they can be used to filter out certain ions and molecules. Researchers have time and again tried to perforate the material graphene for this purpose, which consists of carbon atoms. Since it has no natural pores, they must be inserted artificially. But it is difficult to create holes of a defined size in graphene without permanently damaging the material. This is because it loses mechanical stability due to the perforation. Consequently, an alternative had to be found. In the current study, the research team took advantage of the fact that the crystal lattice of two-dimensional silicon dioxide contains pores by nature. They showed that these pores can be used to separate certain gases from each other.
"This is very exciting because 2D silicon dioxide has a very high density of tiny pores by nature that is simply not possible to be created in artificial membranes," says Petr Dementyev from the Physics of Supramolecular Systems and Surfaces research group in Bielefeld. "Unlike in perforated graphene, the pores are all almost the same size. And there's such an incredible number of them that the material behaves like a fine-mesh sieve for molecules."
More
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
No comments:
Post a Comment