We
report novel supported ionic liquid (IL) phase systems, described
as “inverse” SILPs, consisting of micron size IL droplets
within an envelope of silica nanoparticles. These novel IL-in-air
powders, produced by an easily scalable phase inversion process, are
stable up to 60 °C and 30 bar and are proposed as a means to
confront the major drawbacks of conventional SILPs for gas separation.
SILPs are usually formed by filling the channels of nanoporous materials
with the IL phase. In case the core space of the pores remains open,
such conventional SILPs exhibit lack of gas absorption specificity,
while complete pore filling leads to diffusivity that is very low
compared to that for corresponding bulk ILs; the latter drop is largely
due to the high tortuosity of the pore network of the support. The
inverse SILPs prepared in this work exhibited promising CO2/N2 separation performance that had reached the value
of 20 at absorption equilibrium and enhanced CO2 absorption
capacity of 1.5–3 mmol g–1 at 1 bar and 40
°C. Moreover, the CO2 absorption kinetics were very
fast compared to conventional SILP systems and to simultaneous N2 absorption; the CO2/N2 selectivity
at the short times of the transient stage of absorption had reached
values in excess of 200.
This work demonstrates the efficiency of a hybrid photocatalysis/ultrafiltration process to eliminate or reduce the contents of synthetic dyes in water. The process involves highly active photocatalytic ceramic ultrafiltration (UF) membranes prepared with the deposition of various photocatalysts on the external and internal (pore) surface of UF mono-channel monoliths. A main challenge consists in swapping from the conventional slurry-type photocatalytic purification technology to a novel photocatalytic membrane filtration technology, using the most prominent recently developed TiO 2 based nanomaterials. With this obbective, highly hydroxylated anatase TiO 2 was deposited on ceramic monoliths by applying sol-gel (dip-coating) techniques. Novel materials comprising modified TiO 2 nanocrystals covered with an organic shell layer as well as partially reduced graphene oxide-TiO 2 composites were synthesized and stabilized on the monoliths with the target to develop visible light responding catalytic membranes. The photocatalytic filtration experiments took place
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