Sulfur mustard gas,
also called HD, is one of the main chemical warfare agents and has
claimed thousands of lives and left many more contaminated. The development
of functional materials to promptly capture and detoxify sulfur mustard
within a few minutes is extremely important to save the lives of the
affected people. This has motivated us to explore excellent detoxification
systems that can be deployed in the field to rapidly capture and hydrolyze
mustard gas in a short time. To that end, we present a silver-ion-exchanged
zeolite Y [(Ag+)
n
@Y, n = 5, 13, 21, 32, 43, and 55] that can rapidly capture
mustard gas and its simulant (2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide, CEES) in
ambient conditions to enable the prompt hydrolysis of the CEES captured
in its nanopores. The capture and hydrolysis ability of Ag+@Y positively correlated with its number of Ag+ ions.
In addition, 70% of CEES (2.5 μL in 1 mL) was captured by (Ag+)55@Y within 20 min at 25 °C in ambient conditions.
Moreover, 100% CEES (2.5 μL in 1 mL aqueous ethanol cosolvent)
was hydrolyzed in 1 min at 25 °C. The efficiency of Ag+@Y in capturing and hydrolyzing CEES as well as mustard gas is thus
a system with high detoxification efficiency for this dangerous chemical
warfare agent.
Methods for the rapid removal of chemical warfare agents are of critical importance. In this work, a porous activated carbon material (C-PAC) was prepared from chitosan flakes via single-step potassium carbonate (K2CO3) activation for the prompt adsorption of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP). C-PAC samples were prepared using different carbonization temperatures (350, 550, and 750 °C) at a constant K2CO3/chitosan ratio (1:2) and using different activator ratios (K2CO3/chitosan ratios of 1:0.5, 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3) at 750 °C. Furthermore, we evaluated the effect of preparation conditions on the adsorption capacities of the various C-PAC materials for DMMP under ambient conditions (25 °C). Notably, for the C-PAC material prepared at 750 °C using a K2CO3/chitosan ratio of 1:2, the DMMP adsorption was saturated at approximately 412 mg·g−1 carbon after 48 h. The good performance of this material makes it a potential candidate for use in remedial applications or protective gear.
Encapsulating CdS quantum dots (QDs) into zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) can offer several advantages for photocatalysis. Various types of capping agents have been used to encapsulate QDs into ZIF-8 nanopores. An effective method for encapsulating CdS QDs into ZIF-8 is to use 2-mercaptoimidazole as the capping agent. This is because 2-mercaptoimidazole is similar to the imidazolate ligands of ZIFs and can used for capping active species with simultaneous encapsulation during the crystal growth of ZIF-8. Compared to other widely used capping agents such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), using 2-mercaptoimidazole for encapsulating CdS QDs into ZIF-8 revealed photocatalytic effects along with the molecular sieving effect when using differently sized molecular redox mediators such as methyl viologen (MV2+) and diquat (DQ2+).
Here, we report fabrication of a highly sensitive colorimetric and fluorometric sensor comprising a self-assembled polydiacetylene (PDA) liposome for the measurement of cysteamine concentration. N-maleimidomethanol (HM) moiety was used as...
Base treatment and metal doping were evaluated as means of enhancing the photocatalytic activity of ZrO2 nanoparticles (NPs) via the generation of oxygen vacancies (OvS), and the sites responsible for this enhancement were identified and characterized by spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. We confirmed that OvS produced by base treatment engaged in photocatalytic activity for organic pollutant degradation, whereas surface defects introduced by Cr-ion doping engaged in oxidative catalysis of molecules. Moreover, we verified that base-treated ZrO2 NPs outperformed their Cr-ion doped counterparts as photocatalysts using in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with electron energy loss spectroscopy (STEM-EELS). Thus, our study provides valuable information on the origin of the enhanced photocatalytic activity of modified ZrO2 NPs and demonstrates the practicality of in situ spectroscopy and STEM-EELS for the evaluation of highly efficient metal oxide photocatalysts.
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