Densification effects on the fracture in fused silica under Vickers indentation

This study investigates the effects of densification on the deformation and fracture in fused silica under Vickers indentation by both the finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental tests. A refined elliptical constitutive model was used, which enables us to investigate the effects of the evolution of yield stress under pure shear and elastic properties with densification. The densification distribution was predicted and compared with experiments. The plastic deformation and indentation stress fields were used to analyze the initiation and morphology of various crack types. The formation mechanism of borderline cracks was revealed for the first time. This study reveals that the asymmetry of the densification distribution and elastic-plastic boundary significantly influences the cracking behavior. Under the Vickers indentation, conical cracks have the largest penetration depth. When these cracks emerge from a region far from the impression, they extend with constant radii to form circles on the sample surface. Otherwise, they tend to be initiated at the centers of the indenter-material contact edges before propagating towards the impression corners with increasing radii. Therefore, the borderline cracks consisting of successive partial conical cracks can form at a low load and makes them the first type of crack to appear.     

Nanotechnology‐based wastewater treatment

Water contamination is a global challenge impacting both the environment and human health with significant economic and social costs. The growing scarcity of usable water resources requires effective treatment of wastewater. In this context, developing cheaper, safer and more efficient wastewater treatment technologies are the need of the hour. One promising approach that several studies have reported success has been the usage of nanomaterials in water and waste water management. The rapid progress of research in nanomaterial sciences has shown their growing potential; however, there has not been a great amount of information available on their implementation. This review focuses on developments in nanotechnology that hold strong potential for wastewater treatment. The review covers key techniques in nanomaterial‐based water treatments including adsorption, filtration and photocatalysis with recent examples showing how to improve their properties and efficiencies according to the need.     

Nano fibrillated cellulose-based foam by Pickering emulsion: Preparation,characterizations, and application as dye adsorbent

An ecofriendly and biodegradable porous structure was prepared from drying aqueous foams based on nano fibrillated cellulose (NFC), extracted from softwood pulp by subcritical water/CO₂ treatment (SC-NFC). The primary aim of this work was to use the modified SC-NFC as stabilizer for a water-based Pickering emulsion which upon drying, yielded porous cellulosic materials, a good dye adsorbent. In order to exploit the carboxymethylated SC-NFC (CMSC-NFC, with a degree of substitution of 0.35 and a charge density of 649 μeqv/g) as a stabilizer for water-based Pickering emulsion in subsequent step, an optimized quantity of octyl amine (30 mg/g of SC-NFC) was added to make them partially hydrophobic. A series of dry foam structures were prepared by varying the concentrations of treated CMSC-NFCs and 4 wt% was found to be the optimum concentration to yield foam with high porosity (99%) and low density (0.038 g/cc) along with high compression strength (0.24 MPa), superior to the conventionally extracted NFC. The foams were applied to capture as high as 98% of methylene blue dyes, making them a potential green candidate for treating industrial effluent. In addition, the dye adsorption kinetics and isotherms were found to be well suited with second order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm models.     

负载羧基化球状介孔纳米颗粒TFN膜的研究

在薄层复合膜(thin-film composite membrane, TFC膜)中引入无机纳米颗粒，形成薄层纳米复合膜(thin-film nanocomposite membrane, TFN膜)，近几年作为反渗透膜开始应用于水处理研究。但是无机纳米颗粒在TFC膜中的性能的不稳定性和膜的机械强度等变成了突出问题。合成制备了粒径约为110 nm修饰羧基的介孔氧化硅球状纳米颗粒(MSN—COOH)，并将其成功地化学键合在TFC膜的表面功能层交联网络中。与TFC膜相比，键合有MSN—COOH的TFN膜，水通量提高了56.2%，保持高脱盐率；由于单分散介孔纳米颗粒表面亲水官能团的引入，使膜表面的亲水性有很大程度提高，单分散介孔纳米颗粒在基体中的有序排列，使膜表面粗糙度降低，提高了膜的抗污染能力。与普通TFN膜相比较，具有更好的稳定性和柔韧性，可以在长时间高压过滤操作下保持稳定。     

NH2-MCM-41的改性及其pH响应性释药的研究

采用正硅酸乙酯（TEOS）和3-氨丙基三乙氧基硅烷（APTES）通过共缩聚法合成介孔二氧化硅（MCM-41）。首先对其氨基修饰，再通过有机合成接枝—R基团（—R：—CHO、—OH、—CH₃、—COOH），制备得到Me-Ph-NH-MCM-41、OHC-Ph-NH-MCM-41、HO-Ph-NH-MCM-41、HOOC-Ph-NH-MCM-41四种不同的药物载体。利用FT-IR、Zeta电位、XRD和SEM对其结构和形貌表征，结果表明NH₂-MCM-41改性成功。以罗丹明B（RhB）为模型进行载药性能测试，并考察了此释药系统在模拟不同pH的体液下的敏感释药行为，同时探究了不同—R基团对释药的影响。结果显示，四种载体在中性条件下几乎不发生药物释放，通过改变环境体系pH可以有效控制药物释放，其释药行为可以用Korsmeyer-Peppas动力学模型来描述。实验表明，释药量：RhB@HOOC-Ph-NH-MCM-41>RhB@OHC-Ph-NH-MCM-41>RhB@HO-Ph-NH-MCM-41>RhB@Me-Ph-NH-MCM-41，不同—R基团的药物载体的pH响应性不同，其中RhB@HOOC-Ph-NH-MCM-41释药量在pH=1.2时可达57.87%，在用于药物智能控释材料方面具有一定的应用潜力。     

离子液体水热法辅助合成稀土Ce掺杂ZnO纳米材料的制备及其应用研究

以1-甲基咪唑和氯代正丁烷为原料,合成1-丁基-3-甲基咪唑氯盐离子液体;以醋酸锌[Zn(Ac)2]、硫酸锌(ZnSO4)和氯化锌(ZnCl2)为锌源,在1-丁基-3-甲基咪唑氯盐离子液体和丙氨酸体系中与硝酸铈反应,经水热合成法制备得到Ce掺杂的纳米ZnO。采用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、紫外-可见光吸收光谱(UV-Vis)、X射线衍射仪(XRD)、X射线光电子能谱分析(XPS)和红外光谱(FT-IR)对产品进行表征。以亚甲基蓝(MB)为目标降解物,采用UV-Vis检测,考察了Ce掺杂的纳米ZnO的光催化活性。研究表明,焙烧温度对光催化的晶体结构和光催化活性产生较大的影响;2%Ce/ZnO、焙烧温度为500℃、催化时间为30 min、亚甲基蓝用量0.05 g、pH值为10时降解率可达99.5%以上。