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Environmental Chemistry Commons™

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2011

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Articles 31 - 32 of 32

Full-Text Articles in Environmental Chemistry

A Practical Photoelectrochemical Cell Using Nonprecious Metal Electrodes, Patrick Enright, Tony Betts, John Cassidy Jan 2011

A Practical Photoelectrochemical Cell Using Nonprecious Metal Electrodes, Patrick Enright, Tony Betts, John Cassidy

Articles

Abstract: Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) can be used to harvest light from the oxidation of dissolved organic matter. Similar to fuel cells but requiring light to operate, PECs contain a light assisted electrode that oxidises electron rich materials (anode); these electrons then flow to a typically Pt cathode where O2 is normally the electron acceptor. In this work a PEC cell containing inexpensive materials was shown to (a) mineralise typical organic compounds present in waste water and (b) produce electricity from their decomposition. The PEC cell consisted of a TiO2 coated conducting ink anode exposed to a light source, …


Fabrication And Preliminary Characterization Of Hydrophobic Silica Aerogel Films For Oil Remediation Studies, Ellen Yang Jan 2011

Fabrication And Preliminary Characterization Of Hydrophobic Silica Aerogel Films For Oil Remediation Studies, Ellen Yang

Pomona Senior Theses

Due to the potential of oil sorbents for oil spill clean-up, hydrophobic silica-based aerogel thin films have been synthesized and characterized by various methods. Aerogels were prepared using a two-step acid/base sol-gel process and functionalized with trimethylchlorosilane in hexane, followed by drying in ambient conditions. After film deposition by spin-coating, samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption analysis (BET surface area = 377.66 m2 /g), and variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (thickness of 287.00 ± 0.85 nm, refractive index of 1.08, porosity of 80.9%). Unlike previous studies with aerogel films, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) was applied to …