Liquid membrane processes have attracted many interests in recent years for removal of heavy metals such as cadmium from industrial wastewaters. In this study, a modified hybrid liquid membrane system is introduced. The setup is worked by applying the water-insoluble dioctyl phthalate as the organic solvent. N-octanol and tetra butyl ammonium bromide are added to the organic phase to increase t...

Recent work has demonstrated that organic and mixed organic–inorganic particles can exhibit multiple phase states depending on their chemical composition and on ambient conditions such as relative humidity (RH). To explore the extent to which water uptake varies with particlephase behavior, hygroscopic growth factors (HGFs) of nine laboratory-generated, organic and organic–inorganic aerosol sys...

The water-immiscible ionic liquid, [C4MIM][PF6], is a solvent medium that allows complete transfer of gold nanoparticles from an aqueous phase into an organic phase. Both spherical and rod-shaped gold nanoparticles are efficiently transferred from an aqueous solution into the organic phase without requiring the use of thiols. The sizes and shapes of the gold nanoparticles were preserved during ...

The hygroscopic phase transitions and growth factors of mixed particles having as components ammonium sulfate and secondary organic material (SOM) were measured. The SOM was generated by the dark ozonolysis of α-pinene, and organic particle mass concentrations of 1.63 and 12.2 μg m−3 were studied. The hygroscopic properties were investigated using a 1×3 tandem differential mobility analyzer (1×...

Reverse phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) is a commonly used separation and analysis technique. RPLC typically employs mixtures of organic solvents and water or aqueous buffers as the mobile phase. With RPLC being used on a global scale, enormous quantities of organic solvents are consumed every day. In addition to the purchasing cost of the hazardous solvents, the issue of waste disposal is a...

Modeling atmospheric aerosols containing a large organic fraction with unknown chemical composition and properties has been a constant challenge. The dissertation focuses on the theoretical treatment of the thermodynamic equilibrium of atmospheric aerosol involving organic species. We present a vapor pressure estimation method, based on quantum chemistry methods, to predict the liquid vapor pre...

Vibrational sum-frequency spectroscopy (VSFS) is employed here to study the bonding and structure of water molecules at the mixed halocarbon–water interface. Mixtures of non-polar CCl4 with more polar solvents CHCl3, dichloromethane (DCM), and 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) are used to vary the polarity of the organic phase. The OH stretching modes of interfacial water molecules are used to character...

Optimizing the morphology of bulk heterojunctions is known to significantly improve the photovoltaic performance of organic solar cells, but available quantitative imaging techniques are few and have severe limitations. We demonstrate X-ray ptychographic coherent diffractive imaging applied to all-organic blends. Specifically, the phase-separated morphology in bulk heterojunction photoactive la...

An effective and simple process for the isolation of 106Ru from high-level liquid wastes was developed. Radioactive ruthenium was oxidized by H5IO6 in HNO3 solution and was extracted to CCl4 phase in the form of RuO4. In order to obtain ruthenium in the suitable form for production of brachytherapy sources, RuO4 in organic phase was reduced and re-extracted to aqueous phase. The efficiency of e...