What can we learn from nature? The study of the physical, chemical and structural properties of well-known minerals in the geo- and biosphere creates new opportunities for innovative applications in technology, environment or medicine. This book highlights today’s research on outstanding minerals such as garnets used as components in all solid state batteries, delafossite formation during wastewater treatment, monazites for the immobilization of high level radioactive waste or hyroxylapatite as bioactive material for medical implant applications. Contents Part I: High-technology materials Lithium ion–conducting oxide garnets Olivine-type battery materials Natural and synthetic zeolites Microstructure analysis of chalcopyrite-type CuInSe2 and kesterite-type Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers in thin film solar cells Surface-engineered silica via plasma polymer deposition Crystallographic symmetry analysis in NiTi shape memory alloys Part II: Environmental mineralogy Gold, silver, and copper in the geosphere and anthroposphere: can industrial wastewater act as an anthropogenic resource? Applied mineralogy for recovery from the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Phosphates as safe containers for radionuclides Immobilization of high-level waste calcine (radwaste) in perovskites Titanate ceramics for high-level nuclear waste immobilization Part III: Biomineralization, biomimetics, and medical mineralogy Patterns of mineral organization in carbonate biological hard materials Sea urchin spines as role models for biological design and integrative structures Nacre: a biomineral, a natural biomaterial, and a source of bio-inspiration Hydroxylapatite coatings: applied mineralogy research in the bioceramics field A procedure to apply spectroscopic techniques in the investigation of silica-bearing industrial materials

Im vorliegenden zusammenfassenden Buch wird versucht, die Grundlagen der Kristallographie und insbesondere der Symmetrielehre in deutscher und englischer Sprache darzustellen. Die Zusammenfassung der Symmetrielehre basierend auf den 32 Punktgruppen wird erweitert durch Anwendungsbeispiele der makroskopischen Form von wichtigen Mineralen sowie Hinweisen zu den Raumgruppen.Die Idee, Sprachbarrieren durch gemeinsame Grundlagenpublikationen abzubauen, ergab sich aus den Schwierigkeiten von Austauschstudenten, Vorlesungen und Übungen in einer fremden Sprache und zudem einer fremden Fachsprache zu verstehen. Oft werden fehlende Kenntnisse der deutschen oder portugiesischen Sprache dann über Englisch ausgeglichen.Das Buch ist vor allem dahingehend ausgerichtet, zu helfen, erste Sprachbarrieren zu überwinden und entsprechendes Grundlagenwissen anschaulich darzustellen. Durch die Komplexität des Gesamtgebietes kann hier natürlich nur ein kleiner Ausschnitt aufgezeigt werden, der trotzdem Basisdaten in beiden Sprachen darstellt und als Einführung verwendet werden kann.Hier soll bewusst der Versuch unternommen werden, die für den Austausch zwischen Frank-reich und Deutschland notwendigen Sprachen in den Vordergrund zu stellen. Es ist geplant, diese Zusammenstellung in den kommenden Jahren auszuweiten, zu vervollständigen sowie auch eine entsprechende Zusammenstellung in weiteren Sprachen zur Verfügung zu stellen.

The present book tries to give some introductory basic knowledge of crystallography, especially for the training of symmetry in German and English language. The concentration of training is mostly due to the 32 point groups and adjacent knowledge on application examples of macroscopic forms of important minerals including some hints on space groups.The collaboration between German and other international groups of scientist makes it necessary to have some tools available to discuss relevant crystallographic details in different languages. This is also based on exchange of students and scientists in different fields. The first booklet in this field was published in German and Portuguese language. The idea to overcome basic barriers due to language knowledge should be overcome by using different translations in different languages. Therefore especially an English translation of this basic book is highly necessary. Also animportant language is Chinese and this small booklet aims to give some overview oncrystallography in English and Chinese language.The book focuses mainly on helping to overcome barriers in different languages and show the basic knowledge in crystallography clearly. The complexity of this documentation makes it necessary to show only a small part, but containing despite all details in 2 languages. It can be used as an introductory work. The trial, to consciously include different languages for this topic should help to minimize language barriers and to focus on the scientific work. This bilingual book will be offered also in other languages like German, French, Arabic, Russian, Swedish, Greek, Spanish and Mongolian, among others now or in the future. Also some extensions to other important topics are planned for the future. Special thanks are due to Prof. Dr. Dorothee Mertmann for her patience and helpful transformation of the manuscript into the present form of the book.