Synchrotron X-rays for Metals in Plants, Soils, and Environmental Systems: Early Science and Community Building at XLEAP

Session

Plants and critical minerals

Aug 6, 2026, 11:15 AM

Bradfield 101 (Cornell University)

8. The Microbe-Mineral Atlas and Biomining Critical Elements

Buz Barstow (Cornell University)

8/6/26, 11:15 AM

Oral presentation

Creation of a new sustainable energy infrastructure, carbon sequestration, advanced electronic and computer technologies, and advanced defense technologies all mean that the demand for metals is increasingly rapidly. But traditional mining technology can be highly environmentally damaging. This means that the supply chains for many critical metals and semiconductors stretch through unstable...

36. Advances in Simultaneous Reduction and Nitriding of Iron Oxides using Ammonia by Harnessing Operando Cross-Scale X-Ray Scattering Measurements

Greeshma Gadikota (Columbia University)

8/6/26, 11:45 AM

Plants and critical minerals

Oral presentation

Ammonia is the molecular foundation of the global food system, supplying the nitrogen fertilizer that sustains roughly half the world's population — yet its synthesis consumes an estimated 1–2% of global energy. Iron nitrides are earth-abundant materials central to greening this nitrogen economy: candidate catalysts for nitrogen reduction and ammonia synthesis, ammonia decomposition for...