Catalytic ozone decomposition is of great significance because ozone is a toxic substance commonly found or generated in human environments (aircraft cabins, offices with photocopiers, laser printers, sterilizers). Considerable work has been done on ozone decomposition reported in the literature. This review provides a comprehensive summary of the literature, concentrating on analysis of the physico-chemical properties, synthesis and catalytic decomposition of ozone. This is supplemented by a review on kinetics and catalyst characterization which ties together the previously reported results. Noble metals and oxides of transition metals have been found to be the most active substances for ozone decomposition. The high price of precious metals stimulated the use of metal oxide catalysts and particularly the catalysts based on manganese oxide. It has been determined that the kinetics of ozone decomposition is of first order importance. A mechanism of the reaction of catalytic ozone decomposition is discussed, based on detailed spectroscopic investigations of the catalytic surface, showing the existence of peroxide and superoxide surface intermediates.

Poly(lactic acid)/graphene and poly(lactic acid)/carbon nanotube nanocomposites were prepared by an easy and low-cost method of melt blending of preliminary grinded poly(lactic acid) (PLA) with nanosized carbon fillers used as powder. Morphological, structural and mechanical properties were investigated to reveal the influence of carbon nanofiller on the PLA–based composite. The dependence of tensile strength on nanocomposite loading was defined by a series of experiments over extruded filaments using a universal mechanical testing instrument. The applying the XRD technique disclosed that compounds crystallinity significantly changed upon addition of multi walled carbon nanotubes. We demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy can be used as a quick and unambiguous method to determine the homogeneity of the nanocomposites in terms of carbon filler dispersion in a polymer matrix.

Influences of different nanocomposite loadings in poly(lactic acid) (PLA) matrix on resulting hardness and elasticity were examined in nanoindentation experiments. The following study was focused on the nanomechanical properties of PLA reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by using Berkovich type pyramidal nanoindenter. A masterbatch strategy was developed to disperse GNP and MWCNT into PLA by melt blending. Young's modulus and nanohardness of as‐prepared nanocomposites were characterized as a function of the graphene and carbon nanotubes loading. The nanoindentation analysis reveals that these carbon nanofillers improve the mechanical stability of the nanocomposites GNP/PLA, MWCNT/PLA, and GNP/MWCNT/PLA. That improvement of mechanical properties strongly depends on the fillers content. It was found that the best mechanical performance was achieved for the compound having 6 wt % graphene and 6 wt % MWCNTs in the PLA matrix. The received values for nanohardness and Young's modulus are among the highest reported for PLA‐based nanocomposites. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47260.