Strong adsorption of phosphate by amorphous zirconium oxide nanoparticles

Phosphate removal is important in the control of eutrophication of water bodies. Adsorption is one of the promising approaches for the removal of phosphate, which could serve as a supplement for the biological phosphate removal process commonly used in the wastewater treatment industry to meet the discharge requirement when the biological performance is deteriorated from changes of operation conditions. Amorphous zirconium oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by a simple and low-cost hydrothermal process, and their phosphate removal performance was explored in aqueous environment under various conditions. A fast adsorption of phosphate was observed in the kinetics study, and their adsorption capacity was determined at about 99.01 mg/g at pH 6.2 in the equilibrium adsorption isotherm study. Commonly coexisting anions showed no or minimum effect on their phosphate adsorption performance. The phosphate adsorption showed little pH dependence in the range from pH 2 to 6, while it decreased sharply with the pH increase above pH 7. After adsorption, phosphate on these am-ZrO₂ nanoparticles could be easily desorbed by NaOH solution washing. Both the macroscopic and microscopic techniques demonstrated that the phosphate adsorption mechanism of am-ZrO₂ nanoparticles followed the inner-sphere complexing mechanism, and the surface hydroxyl groups played a key role in the phosphate adsorption.     

Thermally exfoliated graphene oxide reinforced fluorinated pentablock poly(l‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone) electrospun scaffolds: Insight into antimicrobial activity and biodegradation

Three‐dimensional fluorinated pentablock poly(l ‐lactide‐co‐ε‐caprolactone)‐based scaffolds were successfully produced by the incorporation of thermally exfoliated graphene oxide (TEGO) as an antimicrobial agent with an electrospinning technique. In a ring‐opening polymerization, the fluorinated groups in the middle of polymer backbone were attached with a perfluorinated reactive stabilizer having oxygen‐carrying ability. The fiber diameter and its morphologies were optimized through changes in TEGO amount, voltage, polymer concentration, and solvent type to obtain an ideal scaffold structure. Instead of the widely used graphene oxide synthesized by Hummer's method, TEGO sheets having a low amount of oxygen produced by thermal expansion were integrated into the fiber structure to investigate the effect of the oxygen functional groups of TEGO sheets on the degradation and antimicrobial activity of the scaffolds. There was no antimicrobial activity in TEGO‐reinforced scaffolds in the in vitro tests in contrast to the literature. This study confirmed that a low number of oxygen functional groups on the surface of TEGO restricted the antimicrobial activity of the fabricated composite scaffolds. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43490.     

Synthesis and polymerizations of novel bisphosphonate‐containing methacrylates derived from alkyl α‐hydroxymethacrylates

The synthesis and polymerizations of four novel bisphosphonate‐containing monomers are reported. The monomers were synthesized from reaction of ethyl and tert‐butyl α‐bromomethacrylates with 3,3‐bis(diethoxyphosphoryl)propanoic acid or with tetraethyl 4‐hydroxybutane‐1,1‐diyldiphosphonate. Their thermal bulk polymerizations, photopolymerizations and copolymerizations with poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate were investigated. The homopolymerizations resulted in polymers with values of 25 000–83 000 g mol^?1; the copolymerizations yielded soluble polymers with 22–34% incorporation of the new monomers; the photopolymerizations gave some structure–reactivity correlation; and one of the homopolymers, upon hydrolysis of its bisphosphonate groups, could interact with hydroxyapatite. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry     

H @ -Robustness properties preservation in SISO systems when applying SPR substitutions

The preservation of both robust stability and weighted robust performance properties of controlled linear time-invariant single input single output (SISO) systems is studied, when performing substitutions (of the complex Laplace variable s ) by a particular class of rational strictly positive real functions ( SPR functions), the so-called strictly positive real functions of zero relative degree ( SPR0 functions). Concerning weighted robust performance and model-matching, we provide some results on preservation of controller optimality.     

Model for thermodynamic point identification in laser cutting

In recent years, laser cutting has been introduced and developed to such an extent that it is now thought to be one of the leading and indispensable manufacturing tools. At the present time, dross‐free and accurately‐cut parts are basically regarded as the major targets to aim for, because the costs and efforts associated with dross removal by postprocessing cut parts are considerable. Therefore, control of dross formation during laser cutting is an important factor in maintaining edge quality. The initial aim of this paper is to describe the importance of physico‐mechanical material properties that need to be taken into account in modeling of laser material processing in order to control melting of the material.     

Impact of preanneal process on threshold voltage of MOS transistors for trench DRAM

As the first step of DRAM manufacture, preanneal process plays an important role in determining the threshold voltage variation. It is found that the higher trans-1,2-dichloroethene flow in pad oxide growth and the higher nitrogen flow in high-temperature annealing step would respectively engender a lower boron segregation coefficient and higher nitridation of the oxide, both modify the boron distribution in the substrate and consequently the behavior of the threshold voltage. As the feature size of DRAM devices enter nanometer regime, besides gate oxidation, ion implantation and related thermal processes, the impact of preanneal process condition should be prudentially taken into consideration for rigorous control of the threshold voltage in the advanced DRAM production.