Day: December 13, 2022

Dubai, After starting their tour of Bangladesh with defeat in a one-day international series, India’s stand-in captain KL Rahul said they will come out swinging in the opening test match against the hosts beginning in Chattogram on Wednesday.

Rahul is leading the team in the opener of the two-match series with regular captain Rohit Sharma ruled out with a finger injury. India hope to have him back for the second test in Mirpur from December 22.

India, the world’s second-ranked test team behind Australia, are eager to make up for their 2-1 ODI series loss, the team’s first series defeat by Bangladesh in seven years in any format, Reuters reported.

“We won’t go in with any set mindset … we are going to go there and try to be aggressive and get a result,” Rahul told reporters on Monday.

“The game is played over five days so it’s important to break it down into smaller targets and try and achieve that. One thing is sure that you are going to see a lot of aggressive cricket from our side.”

Rahul expects talisman Virat Kohli to be in high spirits after the former captain smashed a century in their win in the third ODI.

“He has been in good form, he has done really well for us in T20 cricket and recently got a hundred against Bangladesh in the ODIs. So obviously he will take some confidence in the test match as well,” Rahul added.

Uncapped batsman Abhimanyu Easwaran will replace Rohit in the team for the first test, while Navdeep Saini and Saurabh Kumar have been named as replacements for injured pair Mohammad Shami (shoulder) and Ravindra Jadeja (knee).

Bangladesh seamer Taskin Ahmed said the team’s bowling unit will have to raise their game to take wickets on the flat track at Chattogram.

“Fast bowlers ideally want to bowl on green tops,” said the 27-year-old, who may miss the first test due to his workload. “Conditions are not in our hands. We have got slow and flat tracks in South Africa and New Zealand.

“We have to make ourselves so skilful that we can bowl well on all types of wickets.

“Great bowlers are also getting five-fors on flat tracks. We have to focus on our self-improvement rather than (look at) conditions.”

Bangladesh have never beaten India in a test match.

Source: Bahrain News Agency

A South African researcher has developed a way to remove contaminants from water used in mining that could help clean up the dirty industry. The award-winning ion exchange method not only cleans the water but captures polluting metals that can then be re-purposed.

At a Johannesburg laboratory, researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand have developed a way to clean acid mine drainage (AMD).

AMD is the runoff of pollutants like sulfuric acid and heavy metals that secrete into waterways, affecting wildlife and rural mining communities.

AMD is often found at gold and coal mines, which are plentiful in South Africa.

Tamlyn Naidu is a post-doctoral research fellow involved in the project.

“What we wanted to do is minimize environmental impact for a lot of these communities that are afflicted by AMD. They have been born into mining communities, they work in mining communities, they’re either scared to report it or to complain about it, because this is their livelihood,” she said.

The ion exchange filtration system that Naidu and her colleagues have developed uses countless polystyrene beads, each the size of a pinhead, which the water passes through.

Unlike a coffee filter, which physically blocks coffee grounds from passing through with water, the beads grab the contaminants in the water chemically.

The passing water, which can be scaled up to clean 1,000 liters an hour, then comes out clear.

“This project though, does something extra. It also wants to extract from the water valuable materials. So what has been identified in some of these streams, especially coal mining streams, is that the acid that’s produced from the mine waters actually dissolves out some rare earth metals,” says Ed Hardwick, the owner of Cwenga Technologies, which is a partner in the research.

Rare earth metals are in huge demand globally because they can be used in new technology like electric vehicles. Being able to extract them adds a financial incentive to cleaning up AMD.

Naidu said she hopes this can empower communities by monetizing the extracted materials from the AMD.

“Ultimately, from this project, we want community members to be involved in something that’s easy for them to operate, that they can extract value from and start, you know, seeing the value that companies have been taking onto the land and taken away from them. And yeah, I guess adding to their quality of life,” she says.

A method to clean up AMD that can be monetized would be good news for the government and communities that are now burdened with the costly task.

“If this was going to be an incentive, it should be on the incentive of the state and that any monies that are obtained from the separation of those minerals that can be repurposed, that can be used, is then fed back into one rehabilitation, but also two, into creating sustainable economies for the communities that are impacted,” says Tarisai Mugunyani, an attorney with the Center for Environmental Rights in Johannesburg.

Researchers say they are hopeful their filtration system, which can be adapted to clean the unique chemistry of AMD at any site, will soon be adopted widely.

It has already gained international attention with Naidu taking the first prize for emerging talents breakthroughs at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin last month.

Naidu said several companies in mining and technology sectors have contacted her about becoming involved.

Source: Voice of America