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Polymers
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Polymeric Materials for Water Management
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Polymeric Materials for Water Management

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 11560

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Despina Fragouli

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Smart Materials, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy
Interests: biocomposites; natural polymers; water management; intelligent food packaging; smart fabrics and paper

Special Issue Information

Water scarcity creates the need for the development of sustainable materials and cost-effective technologies for water management processes. To this aim, one of the emerging routes of recent years is harvesting natural sunlight as a viable source of energy to drive water management processes. The recently-developed functional materials are able to perform advanced oxidation processes for water cleaning, water–crude oil separation, water disinfection, and desalination processes, among others, driven by the energy offered by the sun.

This Special Issue will focus on polymeric-based materials and materials deriving from the processing of polymeric systems (such as carbonization) that can efficiently harvest the energy of natural sunlight in order to perform water management processes, such as removal of organic and inorganic pollutants, disinfection, and desalination in an energy-efficient and sustainable way.

Dr. Despina Fragouli
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Fibrous materials
  • Polymer composites
  • Foams
  • Carbonized materials
  • Natural polymers
  • Hydrogels
  • Membranes
  • Photocatalysis
  • Adsorption
  • Desalination
  • Disinfection
  • Photothermal

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3696 KiB  
Article
Nitrogen-Rich Polyaniline-Based Activated Carbon for Water Treatment: Adsorption Kinetics of Anionic Dye Methyl Orange
by Abdel-Basit Al-Odayni, Faisal S. Alsubaie and Waseem Sharaf Saeed
Polymers 2023, 15(4), 806; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15040806 - 6 Feb 2023
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 3020
Abstract
In the present work, a nitrogen-rich activated carbon (PAnAC) was prepared using polyaniline (PAn) as a precursor to represent one possible conversion of nitrogen-containing polymeric waste into a valuable adsorbent. PAnAC was fabricated under the chemical activation of KOH and a PAn precursor [...] Read more.
In the present work, a nitrogen-rich activated carbon (PAnAC) was prepared using polyaniline (PAn) as a precursor to represent one possible conversion of nitrogen-containing polymeric waste into a valuable adsorbent. PAnAC was fabricated under the chemical activation of KOH and a PAn precursor (in a 4:1 ratio) at 650 °C and was characterized using FTIR, SEM, BET, TGA, and CHN elemental composition. The structural characteristics support its applicability as an adsorbent material. The adsorption performance was assessed in terms of adsorption kinetics for contact time (0–180 min), methyl orange (MO) concentration (C0 = 50, 100, and 200 ppm), and adsorbent dosages (20, 40, and 80 mg per 250 mL batch). The kinetic results revealed a better fit to a pseudo-second-order, specifically nonlinear equation compared to pseudo-first-order and Elovich equations, which suggests multilayer coverage and a chemical sorption process. The adsorption capacity (qe) was optimal (405.6 mg/g) at MO C0 with PAnAC dosages of 200 ppm and 40 mg and increased as MO C0 increased but decreased as the adsorbent dosage increased. The adsorption mechanism assumes that chemisorption and the rate-controlling step are governed by mass transfer and intraparticle diffusion processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Materials for Water Management)
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12 pages, 4231 KiB  
Article
Freestanding Activated Carbon Nanocomposite Electrodes for Capacitive Deionization of Water
by Humair Hussain, Asim Jilani, Numan Salah, Ahmed Alshahrie, Adnan Memić, Mohammad Omaish Ansari and Joydeep Dutta
Polymers 2022, 14(14), 2891; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14142891 - 16 Jul 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2371
Abstract
Freshwater reserves are being polluted every day due to the industrial revolution. Man-made activities have adverse effects upon the ecosystem. It is thus the hour of need to explore newer technologies to save and purify water for the growing human population. Capacitive deionization [...] Read more.
Freshwater reserves are being polluted every day due to the industrial revolution. Man-made activities have adverse effects upon the ecosystem. It is thus the hour of need to explore newer technologies to save and purify water for the growing human population. Capacitive deionization (CDI) is being considered as an emerging technique for removal of excess ions to produce potable water including desalination. Herein, cost-effective activated carbon incorporated with carbon nanotubes (CNT) was used as a freestanding electrode. Further, the desalination efficiency of the designed electrodes was tuned by varying binder concentration, i.e., polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) in the activated carbon powder and CNT mixture. PVDF concentration of 5, 7.5, 10, and 12.5 wt% was selected to optimize the freestanding electrode formation and further applied for desalination of water. PVDF content affected the surface morphology, specific surface area, and functional groups of the freestanding electrodes. Moreover, the electrical conductivity and specific surface area changed with PVDF concentration, which ultimately affected the desalination capacity using the freestanding electrodes. This study paves the way to produce cost effective carbon-based freestanding electrodes for capacitive deionization and other applications including battery electrodes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Materials for Water Management)
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21 pages, 5272 KiB  
Article
Adsorption of Cationic Pollutants from Water by Cotton Rope Coated with Cyclodextrin Polymers
by Ekkachai Martwong, Nathapong Sukhawipat and Jatupol Junthip
Polymers 2022, 14(12), 2312; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14122312 - 7 Jun 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2703
Abstract
The contamination from perilous organic compounds (pesticide and dyes) in water generates a significant problem for the environment and humans. A modified textile was prepared by a coating of anionic cyclodextrin polymer, obtained from the cross-linking between citric acid and β-cyclodextrin in the [...] Read more.
The contamination from perilous organic compounds (pesticide and dyes) in water generates a significant problem for the environment and humans. A modified textile was prepared by a coating of anionic cyclodextrin polymer, obtained from the cross-linking between citric acid and β-cyclodextrin in the presence of poly (vinyl alcohol), on the cotton cord for cationic pollutant removal from an aqueous solution. Its physicochemical properties were also characterized by gravimetry, titration, stereomicroscopy, SEM, TGA, 13C NMR, and ATR-FTIR. The CC2 system exhibited 79.2% coating yield, 1.12 mmol/g COOH groups, 91.3% paraquat (PQ) removal, 97.0% methylene blue (MB) removal, and 98.3% crystal violet (CV) removal for 25 mg/L of initial concentration. The kinetics was fitted to the pseudo-second-order model using 6 h of contact time. The isotherm was suitable for the Langmuir isotherm with a maximum adsorption of 26.9 mg/g (PQ), 23.7 mg/g (MB), and 30.3 mg/g (CV). After 120 h of contact time in water and 5% v/v of HCI in ethanol, the weight loss was 7.5% and 5.6%, respectively. Finally, the recyclability performance reached 84.8% (PQ), 95.2% (MB), and 96.9% (CV) after five reuses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Materials for Water Management)
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18 pages, 4740 KiB  
Article
Photocatalytic Activity of Cellulose Acetate Nanoceria/Pt Hybrid Mats Driven by Visible Light Irradiation
by Federica Costantino, Emanuele Cavaliere, Luca Gavioli, Riccardo Carzino, Luca Leoncino, Rosaria Brescia, Athanassia Athanassiou and Despina Fragouli
Polymers 2021, 13(6), 912; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13060912 - 16 Mar 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2743
Abstract
A photocatalytic system for the degradation of aqueous organic pollutants under visible light irradiation is obtained by an innovative approach based on ceria/platinum (Pt) hybrid nanoclusters on cellulose acetate fibrous membranes. The catalytic materials are fabricated by supersonic beam deposition of Pt nanoclusters [...] Read more.
A photocatalytic system for the degradation of aqueous organic pollutants under visible light irradiation is obtained by an innovative approach based on ceria/platinum (Pt) hybrid nanoclusters on cellulose acetate fibrous membranes. The catalytic materials are fabricated by supersonic beam deposition of Pt nanoclusters directly on the surface of electrospun cellulose acetate fibrous mats, pre-loaded with a cerium salt precursor that is transformed into ceria nanoparticles directly in the solid mats by a simple thermal treatment. The presence of Pt enhances the oxygen vacancies on the surface of the formed ceria nanoparticles and reduces their band gap, resulting in a significant improvement of the photocatalytic performance of the composite mats under visible light irradiation. Upon the appropriate pretreatment and visible light irradiation, we prove that the most efficient mats, with both ceria nanoparticles and Pt nanoclusters, present a degradation efficiency of methylene blue of 70% and a photodegradation rate improved by about five times compared to the ceria loaded samples, without Pt. The present results bring a significant improvement of the photocatalytic performance of polymeric nanocomposite fibrous systems under visible light irradiation, for efficient wastewater treatment applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Materials for Water Management)
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