Luminescent Water Dispersible Microporous Polymeric Nanospheres

<p>Water-dispersible porous polymeric dispersions (PPDs) have been synthesised by reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer mediated polymerisation-induced self-assembly (RAFT-mediated PISA). The core-shell particles posses a microporous core formed from divinylbenzene and fumaronitrile while the outer polyethylene glycol shell enables the particles to be dispersible in a wide range of solvents. The PPD was shown to have a heirarchical structure of small primary nanoparticles within larger, well-defined aggregates of 220 nm as measured by electron microscopy and small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and exhibited a surface area of 274 m²/g. Furthermore these samples were found to be fluoresent and demonstrate selective detection of harmful nitroaramatics in solution with extremly low limits of detection, 169 ppb for picric acid, as well as possessing a CO₂ uptake of 1.1 mmol/g at 273 K.</p>

Luminescent Water Dispersible Microporous Polymeric Nanospheres

<p>Water-dispersible porous polymeric dispersions (PPDs) have been synthesised by reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer mediated polymerisation-induced self-assembly (RAFT-mediated PISA). The core-shell particles posses a microporous core formed from divinylbenzene and fumaronitrile while the outer polyethylene glycol shell enables the particles to be dispersible in a wide range of solvents. The PPD was shown to have a heirarchical structure of small primary nanoparticles within larger, well-defined aggregates of 220 nm as measured by electron microscopy and small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and exhibited a surface area of 274 m²/g. Furthermore these samples were found to be fluoresent and demonstrate selective detection of harmful nitroaramatics in solution with extremly low limits of detection, 169 ppb for picric acid, as well as possessing a CO₂ uptake of 1.1 mmol/g at 273 K.</p>

Chelators confined into 80pvac-borax highly viscous dispersions for the removal of gypsum degradation layers

In this paper a new method for the removal of gypsum degradation layers from carbonatic matrices in cultural heritage conservation, using aqueous Highly Viscous Polymeric Dispersions (HVPDs) based on partially hydrolyzed poly(vinyl acetate) and borax, embedded with chelators, is presented. Due to their interesting viscoelasticity, these systems guarantee a good adhesion to the treated surface and easiness of removal in one step, minimizing the residues. Thus, they can potentially overcome the “residue question” limit associated to traditional methodologies that use thickened solutions of chelators. Here the rheological properties of HVPDs containing different amounts of selected chelating agents are explored and their efficacy in the extraction of gypsum is verified through cleaning tests onto artificially sulfated travertine tiles. The homogeneous removal of gypsum across the surface was checked non-invasively via Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) 2D Imaging. An analytical protocol for the pre-treatment and the analysis of HVPD samples by means of Ion Cromatography (IC) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) was set up and the approximate amount of calcium sulfate removed was determined.