This paper reviews the experience gained over the past few years in two techniques of liver support, charcoal haemoperfusion and polyacrylonitrile membrane haemodialysis. Problems with charcoal haemoperfusion have centred around platelet aggregation and hypertension, and new carbon preparations with a variety of different coatings to overcome these problems are described. Haemodialysis using th...

Highly porous three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical nanostructures suspended in aqueous media were facilely prepared via electrospinning of polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/indium tin oxide (ITO) nanofibers and collection of the hybrid nanofibers by water, followed by hydrothermally growing ZnO nanorods from the nanofibers. The large inter-fiber distances facilitated the uniform growth of the ZnO nanorods...

Polymer nanocomposites with engineered electrical properties can be made by tuning the fabrication method, processing conditions and filler’s geometric and physical properties. This work focuses on investigating the effect of filler’s geometry (aspect ratio and shape), intrinsic electrical conductivity, alignment and dispersion within the polymer, and polymer crystallinity, on the percolation t...

To improve the mechanical strength and antipollution properties of membranes, this research presents a facile method to prepare crosslinked polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes. This was achieved firstly by radical copolymerization with acrylonitrile, allyl methacrylate and sulfobetaine methacrylamide. Then, the copolymer was crosslinked by a thiol-ene click reaction under UV irradiation. Finally,...

Large-scale alignment of lamellae in thin films of diblock copolymers containing polyacrylonitrile and poly(n-butyl acrylate) was achieved by casting copolymer solution on a silicon substrate moved away at a constant speed from the casting nozzle (zone-casting). Grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering revealed that the lamellae, which were perpendicular to the substrate, were also aligne...

Somatostatin receptor positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) with 68Ga-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid (DOTA) peptides have become an indispensable part of disease assessment in patients with neuroendocrine tumors and forms the basis of personalized therapy with peptide receptor-based radionuclide therapy. With growing utilization of PET/CT in develop...

Three chelating ion-exchange resins based on macroreticular polyacrylonitrile-divinylbenzene copolymers with thioglycollic acid and cysteine as functional groups have been tested for separation of molybdenum(VI) and tungsten(VI). On a short column of the thioglycollic acid resin, molybdenum(VI) and tungsten(VI) can be selectively sorbed from pH-4.3 acetate buffer and eluted with 2M hydrochloric...

Doped Si nanoparticles (SiNPs) with conformal carbon coating and cyclized-polyacrylonitrile (PAN) network displayed capacities of 3500 and 3000 mAh g(-1) at C/20 and C/10, respectively. At 1 C, the electrode preserves a specific discharge capacity of ∼1500 mAh g(-1) for at least 60 cycles without decay. Al2O3 atomic layer deposition (ALD) helps improve the initial Coulombic efficiency (CE) to 8...

The effect of structural evolution polyacrylonitrile (PAN) on mechanical properties was investigated in stabilization and carbonization. PAN spun fibers were stabilized in a convection oven with a constant tension for various times at 250 ̊C. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and gel fraction results suggested that intra and intermolecular stabilization reactions occurred simultaneo...