Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2019-10-11"
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Development of new nanocomposites for waste water cleaningPublication . Vatansever, Sabriie; Cuniberti, Gianaurelio; Rodrigues, João Manuel Cunha; Licciardello, NadiaDyes are one of the most common pollutants in water. In particular, azo dyes are highly toxic, have a complex structure and are particularly hard to degrade because they contain nitrogen nitrogen double bonds. In addition, in waste water differently charged dyes can be present. Removing these pollutants with a single method or material is hard by using traditional treatment techniques. In this thesis, new nanocomposites were prepared by combining Fe3O4/P(NIPAM-co-MAA) polymeric microspheres and different generations of Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers. The prepared nanocomposites are able to remove differently charged dyes, including the very resistant azo-dye methyl orange, and can also be recycled thanks to their magnetic properties. Different generations (3rd, 4th and 5th) of PAMAM dendrimers and Fe3O4/P(NIPAM-co-MAA) microspheres have been used in order to synthesize the nanocomposites. The most promising nanocomposites were synthesized by also using a different molar ratio of polymer/dendrimer. All the obtained nanocomposites were tested to adsorb differently charged dyes and, in particular, the positively charged dye basic fuchsin (BF) and the negatively charged azo-dye methyl orange (MO). According to the results, the nanocomposite containing the 5th generation of PAMAM showed the maximum adsorption capacity in the removal of both BF and MO. The adsorption capacity of this nanocomposite towards MO is better than the not grafted polymeric microspheres that can adsorb perfectly BF but cannot adsorb MO. Due to their magnetic properties, the nanocomposites can also be removed by applying an external magnetic field.