Development of a Hydrophobic Carbon Sponge Nanocomposite for Oil Spill Cleanup.

Oil leaks (or spills) into the aquatic environment are considered a natural disaster and a severe environmental problem for the entire planet. Samples of polyurethane (PU) composites were prepared with high specific surface area carbon nanotubes (CNT) to investigate crude oil sorption. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), density measurements, and mechanical compression tests were used to characterize the polyurethane-carbon PU-CNT prepared samples.

Potentialities of a mesoporous activated carbon as virus detection probe in aquatic systems.

Enteric viruses are widely spread in water environments, some being harmful for human communities. Regular epidemics highlight the usefulness of analysing such viruses in wastewaters as a tool for epidemiologists to monitor the extent of their dissemination among populations. In this context, CNovel™ Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) was chosen for its high porosity and high adsorption capacity to investigate sorbent ability to be used as part of of virus detection probes.

Efficiency of the heterogeneous catalyst from electrocoagulation sludge for the removal of methylene blue in the presence of persulfate.

Persulfate activation by heterogeneous catalysts based on transition metals is of interest in textile effluent treatment processes. Thus, iron-rich electrocoagulation sludge has been thermally treated to obtain new catalysts. The characterization of this catalyst by X-ray diffraction revealed the presence of FeAlO nanoparticles active in the decomposition of persulfate into sulfate radicals (SO).

Prilling and characterization of hydrogels and derived porous spheres from chitosan solutions with various organic acids.

This work emphazises the importance of the solubilizing conditions for the elaboration of chitosan hydrogel beads, which were produced using electromagnetic laminar jet breakup technology, resulting in dried porous beads by further freeze-drying. Paramaters such as the acid nature and concentration (acetic, formic, citric, lactic, maleic and malic, 0.1 to 0.