Treatment of Electroplating Wastewater Using NF pH-Stable Membranes: Characterization and Application.

Industrial adoption of nanofiltration (NF) for treatment of low-pH wastewater is hindered by the limited membrane lifetime at strongly acidic conditions. In this study, the electroplating wastewater (EPWW) filtration performance of a novel pH-stable NF membrane is compared against a commercial NF membrane and a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. The presented membrane is relatively hydrophobic and has its isoelectric point (IEP) at pH 4.

Polymer functionalized nanoparticles in liquid crystals: combining PDLCs with LC nanocomposites.

Liquid crystal (LC)-polymer blends are important stimuli responsive materials already employed in a wide range of applications whereas nanoparticle (NP)-LC blends are an emerging class of nanocomposites. Polymer ligands offer the advantages of synthetic simplicity along with chemical and molecular weight tunability. Here we compare the phase behavior of 5CB blended with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and with gold NPs functionalized with thiolated PEO (AuNP-PEO) as a function of PEO concentration by DSC, POM and 13C NMR spectroscopy.