Protection of the global environment and, in particular, providing a sustainable source of clean water is a necessity for human survival. The wide use of heavy metals by modern industries has generated by-products containing heavy metals. Specifically, large quantities of chromium and arsenic containing compounds are being discharged into the environment. This study has been conducted to determine the feasibility of an electrocoagulation (EC) process using air injection to remove these inorganic elements with iron electrodes. Powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission Mössbauer spectroscopy were used to characterize the solid products formed at iron electrodes during EC. The results of this study suggest that magnetite particles and amorphous iron oxyhydroxides are present in the examined EC products. The field pilotscale study demonstrated the removal of Cr(VI)/Cr(III) and As(III)/As(V) with an efficiency of more than 99 % from both wastewater and wells.
Biotin and biotinylated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold have been investigated using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, direct laser desorption, laser desorption with 193 nm photoionization of ion- and laser-desorbed species, and laser desorption with vacuum ultraviolet (VUV, 118 nm) photoionization. Our results indicate that direct laser desorption and laser desorption combined with 193 nm multiphoton ionization can detect a chromophoric molecule like biotin that is covalently bound to a SAM. However, secondary ion mass spectra were dominated by fragmentation, and ion desorption/193 nm photoionization detected no species related to biotin. The dominant features of the laser desorption/VUV mass spectra were neat and Au-complexed dimers of intact and fragmented biotinylated SAM molecules. Multiphoton and single-photon ionization of laser-desorbed neutrals from biotinylated SAMs both led to the production of ions useful for chemical analysis of the monolayer. Multiphoton ionization with ultraviolet radiation was experimentally less challenging but required a chromophore for ionization and resulted in significant fragmentation of the adsorbate. Single-photon ionization with VUV radiation was experimentally more challenging but did not require a chromophore and led to less fragmentation. X-ray photoelectron spectra indicated that the biotinylated SAM formed a disordered, 40-60 Å thick monolayer on Au. Additionally, projection photolithography with a Schwarzschild microscope was used to pattern the biotinylated SAM surface and laser desorption/photoionization was used to detect biotinylated adsorbates from the ∼10 μm sized pattern.
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