Removal of organic contaminants from wastewater with GO/MOFs composites

Graphene oxide/metal-organic frameworks (GO/MOFs) have been prepared via solvothermal synthesis with ferrous sulfate heptahydrate, zirconium acetate and terephthalic acid for the purpose of removing organic pollutants from wastewater. The composites were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectrometry, and XRD. Tetracycline hydrochloride and orange II were implemented as model pollutants to evaluate the efficacy of the GO/MOFs in water purification, in which 50 mg of Zr/Fe-MOFs/GO was mixed with 100 mL of 10 mg/L, 20 mg/L, 30 mg/L, or 50 mg/L tetracycline hydrochloride solution and 25 mg/L, 35 mg/L, 45 mg/L, or 60 mg/L orange II solution, respectively. The removal efficacy after 4 hours was determined to be 96.1%, 75.8%, 55.4%, and 30.1%, and 98.8%, 91.9%, 71.1%, and 66.2%, respectively. The kinetics of pollutant removal was investigated for both tetracycline hydrochloride and orange II and excellent correlation coefficients of greater than 0.99 were obtained. The high efficacy of these MOFs in pollutant removal, coupled with their inexpensive preparation indicates the feasibility of their implementation in strategies for treating waste liquid. As such, it is anticipated that Zr/Fe-MOFs/GO composites will be widely applied in wastewater purification.

Flame-retardant treatment of wool and wool-rich blends: A study of bath composition

Wool and wool-polyamide blended yarns (88.6% wool–11.4% polyamide 6,6 and 78.5% wool–21.5% polyamide 6,6) were knitted and the produced fabrics were treated by exhaustion method with zirconium complexes. Six different baths containing potassium hexafluorozirconate and zirconium acetate were studied. The flammability hazard was evaluated considering parameters such as the spread of flame, the heat release and the smoke release rate. Regardless of the blend composition, the untreated fabrics could not pass the vertical flammability test. 100% wool fabric could pass the vertical flammability test when treated with only 1% potassium hexafluorozirconate and 10% zirconium acetate solution. Higher compositions of metal complexes were required for the blended fabrics to pass the vertical flammability test. In the cone calorimeter test, 100% wool treated with 5% potassium hexafluorozirconate and 10% zirconium acetate solution gave the lowest peak heat release and smoke release rate values as 146.4 kW/m2 and 1.2 s−1, respectively.

Correction: Improved fill factor in inverted planar perovskite solar cells with zirconium acetate as the hole-and-ion-blocking layer

Correction for ‘Improved fill factor in inverted planar perovskite solar cells with zirconium acetate as the hole-and-ion-blocking layer’ by Xuewen Zhang et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2018, 20, 7395–7400.

Improved fill factor in inverted planar perovskite solar cells with zirconium acetate as the hole-and-ion-blocking layer

The fill factor of inverted planar perovskite solar cells was increased when using zirconium acetate as the buffer layer due to its hole-and-ion blocking ability.

Synthesis of nanocrystallized zirconium carbide based on an aqueous solution-derived precursor

Nanocrystallized zirconium carbide (ZrC) powder was synthesized by an aqueous solution-based process using zirconium acetate and sucrose as starting reagents.