Ionic strength and polyelectrolyte molecular weight effects on floc formation and growth in Taylor-Couette flows.

Polyelectrolyte-driven flocculation of suspended particulate in solution is an important process in a variety of industrial processes such as drinking water treatment and composite material synthesis. Flocculation depends on a wide variety of physicochemical and hydrodynamic properties, which affect floc size, growth rate, and floc morphology. Floc formation and growth behavior is explored here using two different molecular weights of a cationic polyacrylamide flocculant and anisotropic Na-bentonite clay particles under a variety of solution ionic strengths.

Microfluidic rheology of methylcellulose solutions in hyperbolic contractions and the effect of salt in shear and extensional flows.

Methylcellulose solutions are known to form microfibrils at elevated temperatures or in the presence of salt. The fibrils have a significant impact on the solution's rheological properties. Here, the shear and extensional properties of methylcellulose solutions with added salt are measured using hyperbolic microfluidic channels, allowing for new characterization at lower molecular weights and higher shear and strain rates that are difficult to access by macroscale rheology studies.

High interfacial activity of polymers "grafted through" functionalized iron oxide nanoparticle clusters.

The mechanism by which polymers, when grafted to inorganic nanoparticles, lower the interfacial tension at the oil-water interface is not well understood, despite the great interest in particle stabilized emulsions and foams. A simple and highly versatile free radical "grafting through" technique was used to bond high organic fractions (by weight) of poly(oligo(ethylene oxide) monomethyl ether methacrylate) onto iron oxide clusters, without the need for catalysts. In the resulting ∼1 μm hybrid particles, the inorganic cores and grafting architecture contribute to the high local concentration of grafted polymer chains to the dodecane/water interface to produce low interfacial tensions of only 0.

Counterion influence on chemical shifts in strychnine salts.

The highly toxic plant alkaloid strychnine is often isolated in the form of the anion salt of its protonated tertiary amine. Here, we characterize the relative influence of different counterions on (1)H and (13)C chemical shifts in several strychnine salts in D2O, methanol-d4 (CD3OD), and chloroform-d (CDCl3) solvents. In organic solvents but not in water, substantial variation in chemical shifts of protons near the tertiary amine was observed among different salts.