Hydrophobic and elastic aerogels derived from methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) precursor were prepared by ambient pressure drying under various processing conditions, and their morphology and physical and mechanical properties were characterised and evaluated. The results of this study demonstrated that for inherently hydrophobic gels like MTMS based gels, high temperature ageing is a practical and effective means to reduce volume shrinkage and produce low bulk density monolithic aerogels at ambient pressure, without the need of any solvent exchange and surface modification. By using this simple method, we were able to produce an aerogel with a bulk density as low as 0.064g/cm3. The results also revealed a significant difference from that previously reported in the literature.

Different kinds of anionic polyhydric alcohols water-borne polyurethane (WPU) emulsion and films were prepared by separately taking polypropylene carbonate polyol (PPC), polyethylene-1,4-buthylene adipate glycol (PBA) and polytetramethylene ether glycol (PTMG) with the same molecular weight as soft segment. Their structure and properties were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), rigidity, adhesive power, contact angle and water absorption. Comparing their properties, it was found that the rigidity, adhesive power and water resistance of PPC WPU were similar to those of PBA WPU.

poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPPAm) is a thermally sensitive polymeric material which exhibits large volume transition at temperatures around its lower critical solution temperature (LCST). To get a thermosensitive semi-Interpenetrating Polymer Networks(semi-IPNs), N- isopropylacrylamide (NIPPAm) was dispersed and synthesized with different crosslinking agent amount in thermoplastic polyurethane(TPU) solution. The resulting films were characterized in terms of swelling ration, surface contact angle, and scanning electron micrograph (SEM). The results showed that filming medium has great affect on the structure and swelling of PU/PNIPPAm composite film and the amount of crosslinking agent influents the miscibility of PU and PNIPPAm. Ethanol as filming medium makes the phase separation behavior of PNIPPAm insignificant in the films.

In this work, self-cleaning cotton fabrics were prepared based on the TiO2-SiO2-Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites. TiO2-SiO2 composites were synthesized by depositing TiO2 nanocrystals onto preformed porous SiO2 and PDMS was used to enhance the linkage between TiO2-SiO2 composites and cotton fabrics. The TiO2-SiO2-PDMS composites coated cotton fabrics show superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 157°because of the abundant of methyl groups and hierarchical roughness features of the coated cotton fabrics. Meanwhile, the TiO2-SiO2-PDMS composites coated cotton fabrics display photocatalytic property, which were analyzed based on the removal and degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) under ultraviolet light. Abrasion resistance test indicates that the coating possesses a good mechanically durability.

The photocatalyst of Ag doped TiO2 in liquid state was applied to decolorize the Reactive Red 3BS under UV irradiation. The rate of photocatalytic degradation of the dye was improved with increasing the concentration of catalyst from 1 g/L to 8 g/L. But as a result of light attenuation for the rising catalyst concentration, the rate of reaction was constant at 8-12 g/L of the catalyst concentration. The rate of dye photocatalytic degradation decreased with increasing initial concentration of dye. The kinetics of photocatalytic reaction was also studied. The results showed that degradation reaction is congruent with an apparent first-order kinetic equation, and the relationship between apparent reaction rate and initial dye concentration fits approximately a negative second-order kinetic relationship.