Bulk SrTiO3 is cubic and not expected to exhibit any first-order Raman scattering. However, nanocubes of SrTiO3 with an edge length of 80±10nm show strong first-order Raman scattering originating from the breaking of symmetry caused by frozen surface dipoles (local tetragonality) and the presence of nanoscopic polar domains (arising from incorporated impurities). Rapid polarization fluctuations within these nanoscopic ferroelectric regions interfere with a polar phonon, resulting in a Fano-like asymmetric line shape in these SrTiO3 nanocubes, as well as in Ca0.3Sr0.7TiO3 nanocubes.

High purity water soluble chitosans (WsCs) were employed as a flocculant to remove heavy metal ions from wastewater of industrial plating wastewater treatment complex. Their weight average molecular weights and polydispersities were 272,000~620,000 g/mol and 1.4~1.9 range, respectively and were readily soluble in water in the pH range of 3~11. Heavy metal ions such as chromium, iron and copper were removed well by WsCs. When WsCs was blended with either sodium N,N-diethyldithiocarbamate trihydrate (SDDC T ) or sodium salicylate (SS C ), the removal efficiency was further increased primarily due to the excess amount of hydrophilic sulfonic and carboxylic groups. Especially, in the case of WsCs-SS C the remaining chromium and copper concentrations were 0.1 mg/L and 9.5 mg/L, which are 1/15 and 1/3 compared with that of pure WsCs, respectively. The former is within the acceptable limit, but the latter is not. Therefore, the effective copper flocculant remains to be studied.