No abstract

No abstract

Because of the environmental concerns of eliminating lead from piezoelectric products, bismuth‐based perovskite is becoming one of the most potential candidates. However, its relatively low thermal depolarization temperature (Td) is still an imperative obstacle hindering implementation of this material for practical application. Here, an enhanced temperature stability of 0.94(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3‐0.06BaTiO3 (BNTBT6) piezoceramics is reported, which can be obtained by the effective quenching process. Quenching process enhances the depolarization temperature to 136 °C, which is 40 °C higher than that of normal sintered samples. By using X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance methods, it is revealed that oxygen vacancy may exist in the quenched samples and consequently pins the domain walls, resulting in significant enhancement of depolarization temperature. Temperature‐dependent dielectric, piezoelectric, and ferroelectric behaviors are measured as criteria to evidence the enhanced temperature stability.

No abstract

No abstract

a b s t r a c tA novel strategy for surface modification of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) was developed via combination of mussel inspired chemistry and Michael addition reaction. In this procedure, pristine MWCNT were first coated with polydopamine (PDA) through self polymerization of dopamine. The PDA functionalized CNT (CNT-PDA) were further functionalized with amino-terminated polymers (polyPEGMA), which were synthesized via free radical polymerization using cysteamine hydrochloride as the chain transfer agent and poly(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether methacylate as the monomer. The successful modification of CNT was ascertained by a series of characterization techniques including transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectrometry. The polymer modified CNT showed enhanced dispersibility in aqueous and organic solution. Cytotoxicity evaluation of polymers modified CNT showed that these modified CNT are biocompatible with cells. Finally, due to the universal adhesive of PDA and chain transfer free radical polymerization, this strategy developed in this work can also be extended for surface modification of many other nanomaterials with different functional polymers.

Thermo-responsive graphene oxide nanocomposites were fabricated by a facile, efficient and versatile method via combination of mussel inspired chemistry and RAFT polymerization.

The development of highly efficient adsorbents for the removal of organic dyes from wastewater has attracted much attention recently. Surface modification of adsorbents with polymers is a general strategy for enhancement of their adsorption capability. In this work, a novel strategy of a combination of mussel inspired chemistry and SET-LRP has been developed for the fabrication of highly efficient adsorbents, poly(sodium-p-styrene sulfonate) modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs), for the first time. The adsorption applications of these CNT based polymer nanocomposites for the removal of a cationic dye (methylene blue, MB) from a water solution were also examined. The successful preparation of these CNT based polymer nanocomposites was confirmed by a series of characterization techniques.Furthermore, the influence of adsorption parameters including contact time, concentration of MB, adsorption temperature and time has been investigated. According to the experimental data, the adsorption capacity of MB was directly proportional to the contact time, while inversely proportional to the temperature. The maximum adsorption capacity of MB for CNT-PDA-PSPSH was 160 mg g À1 , demonstrating the excellent adsorptive property of functional CNTs for MB. The method described in this work for the preparation of CNT based polymer nanocomposites is simple, effective and general, and could be a universal strategy for preparation of highly efficient adsorbents for environmental applications. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: TEM images and TGA analysis of CNT samples were provided. See Scheme 1 Schematic representation for the preparation of CNT-PDA-PSPSH via the combination of mussel-inspired chemistry and a facile SET-LRP polymerization method. 82504 | RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 82503-82512 This journal is