Fluoride (F) contaminated ground water poses a serious public health concern to rural population with unaffordable purification technologies. Therefore, development of a cost-effective, portable, environment and user-friendly defluoridation technique is imperative. In the present study, we report on the development of a green and cost-effective method that utilizes Fe3O4 and Al2O3 nanoparticles (NPs) that were synthesized using jojoba defatted meal. These NPs were impregnated on to polyurethane foam (PUF) and made into tea infusion bags. The Al2O3 NPs-PUF displayed a higher water defluoridation capacity of 43.47 mg g−1 of F as compared to 34.48 mg g−1 of F with Fe3O4 NPs-PUF. The synthesized Al2O3-PUF infusion bags removed the F that was under the permissible limit of 1.5 mg L−1. The sorption experiments were conducted to verify the effect of different parameters such as pH, contact time, size of PUF and initial F concentration. The different properties of adsorbent were characterized using a combination of FESEM, EDX, XRD and FTIR techniques, respectively. The calculated total cost per NPs-PUF pouch developed is as low as US $0.05, which makes the technology most suitable for rural communities. This paper will be beneficial for researchers working toward further improvement in water purification technologies.
This
report describes the synthesis of thiol-protected Pd nanoparticles
(NPs) (Pd-MUA) (MUA = 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid) supported
on oxidized charcoal (OC-Pd-MUA) at room temperature.
The Pd-MUA NPs and OC-Pd-MUA nanocomposites
(NCs) were characterized with Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy,
transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry
(EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller
(BET) techniques. The size distribution curve revealed that the diameter
of the nanoparticles was in the range of ∼8–12 nm, and
the surface area of the NCs was found to be 138.449 m2/g.
The as-prepared OC-Pd-MUA NCs were used as a catalyst
for the cross dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) of two different heteroarenes.
Remarkably, the catalyst was found to be very efficient in activating
various heteroarenes under mild reaction conditions. Most importantly,
no homocoupled or other byproducts were observed during the heterocoupling
reactions. Moreover, the catalyst can be potentially used for the
homocoupling reaction of various heteroarenes. It is noteworthy that
only 0.22 mol % catalyst loading was required to activate a broad
substrate scope with large functional group tolerance. Notwithstanding,
the efficacy of the catalyst was found to be retained even after six
reaction cycles. The reusability and hot filtration tests validated
the heterogeneous nature of the catalysis. In addition, the experimental
and computational studies collectively suggested that thiophene derivatives
react to produce energetically stable products compared with other
heteroarenes during the reaction.
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