Thermally driven adsorption chillers and heat pumps are a very promising approach toward an efficient use of energy as well as an effective climate protection through reduced CO2 emission of conventional heating and cooling devices. With regard to current market entrance of this technology, this paper presents results on the stability of current available materials like silica gels and zeolites, recently developed materials like aluminophosphates (AlPO) and silica-aluminophosphates (SAPO) and novel materials like metal organic frameworks (MOF) under hydrothermal treatment.Seven materials as powders or granules as well as three composite have been analyzed under continuous thermal cycling in a water vapour atmosphere in order to evaluate their suitability for the use in a periodically working heat pump with water as working fluid.The stability of powders has been analyzed in-situ by thermogravimetry in a first stage short-cycle test. In case of the composite, made up of an active sorption material and a support structure, a cycling-test rig has been developed in order to realize a life-cycle stress. The need for a first stage short-cycle test is demonstrated impressively by the dramatic loss of 40% in sorption capacity of a Cu-BTC sample within the first 15 cycles

Emulsifier-free aqueous dispersions of functionalized graphene (FG) represent key intermediates for the production of rubber composites, enabling uniform dispersion of predominantly single FG sheets. In this comparative study on styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) composites with conventional and novel carbon-based fillers the influence of filler type, content, and dispersion process is examined. For SBR/FG nanocomposites two aqueous dispersion blend strategies based on thermally and chemically reduced graphite oxide are explored. Electron microscopy and X-ray tomography confirm the highly effective FG dispersion in SBR leading to simultaneous improvement of mechanical properties, electrical conductivity, and gas barrier resistance.

A state-of-the-art, medium-resolution H-NMR spectrometer (62 MHz) is used as a chemically sensitive online detector for size-exclusion chromatography of polymers such as polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene (PS). The method uses protonated eluents and works at typical chromatographic conditions with trace amounts of analytes (<0.5 g L after separation). Strong solvent suppression, e.g., by a factor of 500, is achieved by means of T -filtering and mathematical subtraction methods. Substantial improvements are made with respect to previous work in terms of the sensitivity (signal-to-noise ratio up to 130:1, PMMA OCH ) and selectivity (peak width, full width half maximum (FWHM) 4 Hz on-flow). Typical homopolymers and a blend are investigated to deformulate their composition along the dimensions of molecular weight and NMR chemical shift. These results validate this new hyphenated chromatography method, which can greatly facilitate analysis and is much more effective than previously published results.