Characterization of absorbent polymers for the removal of volatile hydrophobic pollutants from air

Abstract

BACKGROUND: An emerging innovation for the treatment of polluted air consists in using a liquid-solid biphasic system, in which the sequestering phase contains inert polymer beads. The different polymers tested here for this purpose were; Hytrel  G3548L, Hytrel  G4078W, styrene butadiene copolymer, 28% and 31%, silicone rubber, PEBAX  2533, and rubber tires. The selection of the most effective polymer(s) first requires a determination of the uptake of the pollutants by the solid phase in terms of key polymer properties such as partition coefficient, diffusion coefficient and biodegradability.

A first principles approach to identifying polymers for use in two‐phase partitioning bioreactors

“…9,10 The variety of available polymer structures provides a virtually limitless array of material properties, but their use presents new questions regarding TPPB sorbent selection. 11,12 For example, quantitative measures of solute affinity must be determined for polymers of potential interest. Consideration must also be given to glass transition temperatures and polymer morphologies, since these affect the thermodynamic and transport properties of solutes in these materials.…”

Editorial for January 2012

“…Journal editors have contributed lots of very interesting research articles and front matter articles. At the time of writing, the paper published in 2011 with the most citations was written by board member Professor Christian Kennes6 and we are very appreciative of all of the editors that have contributed their work to the journal. We would also like to welcome new Advisory Editorial Board members to the journal: Marcelo Fernandez‐Lahore from Jacobs University, Jeonghwan Kim from INHA University, Kang Li from Imperial College and Leland M Vane from the US Environmental Protection Agency.…”

Treatment of substituted phenol mixtures in single phase and two-phase solid–liquid partitioning bioreactors

“…TPPBs have been successfully applied in the removal of xenobiotic compounds from air, water and soil [3][4][5][6]. We have demonstrated the enhanced biotreatment of phenol and of 4-nitrophenol (4NP) in TPPBs using immiscible organic solvents [7,8] and commercial polymer beads [9], with the latter approach allowing the use of mixed microbial consortia because of the non-bioavailability and biocompatibility of polymeric materials (e.g.…”