Abstract
Traditionally, a large number
of particulate matters are used individually or in different combination as
adsorbents in water filtration system, air pollutant trapping systems, sewage
treatments plants, to name a few. Many of these particulate matters possess
extremely high surface area, but disadvantageously demonstrate a strong
tendency to form agglomeration, therefore excluding a large portion of these
particles' available surface area to analytes. FIU inventors have developed carbonaceous and
non-carbonaceous particulate matters encapsulated in sol-gel sorbent matrices,
and methods of synthesizing them. The addition of particulate matters in the
sol solution during sol-gel synthesis results in a sol-gel composite sorbent
system with homogeneously trapped particulate matters in a permeable cage-like
architecture. Due to the inherently porous and open architecture of a sol-gel
silica network, encapsulated particulate matters maintain high surface area and
freely accessible interaction sites. The unique combination of the particulates
into sol-gel matrix synergistically augments the material properties of the composite
material system to offer unique selectivity and affinity towards most of the
target analytes. These analytes include emerging pollutants, EPA priority
pollutants, heavy metals ionic and ionizable compounds, endocrine disrupting
chemicals, and other pollutants and unwanted entities in water and air.
Benefit
Possess high porosity, high surface area, and high thermal and chemical stabilityProvide superior chromatographic selectivity and excellent extraction efficiencyCan be used for a wide range of analytes including polar, medium polar, nonpolar, ionic, and metal species
Market Application
These sol-gel encapsulated particulate matters can be employed in water filtration, environmental pollution remediation, wastewater treatment, air pollution monitoring and mitigation, as well as sorbents in solid phase extraction and solid phase microextraction.
Brochure
