Polymer Chemistry Commons^™

The Effect Of The Carbon Nanotubes’ Surface Area On The Morphology And Performance Of Cellulose Acetate Nanocomposite Membranes In Nanofiltration Applications, Nouran Elbadawi

Theses and Dissertations

Population increase and climate change have significantly affected the availability of fresh water for consumption. Studies by UNESCO showed that more than 28% of the world population didn’t have access to clean safe drinking water in 2020. This situation is expected to get more serious over the coming 30 years with the limited availability of natural fresh water sources. The need to find solutions from alternative non-freshwater resources for drinking or irrigation is becoming a necessity. Within the context of desalination technologies, thousands of investigations are conducted to find the cheapest most efficient way of water treatment aiming at expanding …

A Highly Conductive, Flexible, And 3d-Printable Carbon Nanotube-Elastomer Ink For Additive Bio-Manufacturing, Andy Shar, Phillip Glass, Daeha Joung Ph.D.

Undergraduate Research Posters

The synthesis of a highly conductive, flexible, 3D-printable, and biocompatible ink has been of great interest in the field of bio-based additive manufacturing. Various applications include ultra-sensitive, microscale tactile sensors, patient-customizable scaffolds for cardiac and nerve tissue regeneration, and flexible electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes. Here, a novel elastomeric carbon nanocomposite is presented consisting of amino-functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNT-NH₂) homogenously dispersed in a one-part room-temperature vulcanizing (RTV) silicone matrix. The use of acetone as a swelling solvent aids in electrical percolation through the elastomer matrix. CNT-NH₂ ratios can be tuned to fit various needs; higher tensile strength is favored …

Pressure Driven Desalination Utilizing Nanomaterials, Fangyou Xie

Master's Theses

Nanomaterials such as graphene oxide and carbon nanotubes, have demonstrated excellent properties for membrane desalination, including decrease of maintenance, increase of flux rate, simple solution casting, and impressive chemical inertness. Here, two projects are studied to investigate nanocarbon based membrane desalination. The first project is to prepare hybrid membranes with amyloid fibrils intercalated with graphene oxide sheets. The addition of protein amyloid fibrils expands the interlayer spacing between graphene oxide nanosheets and introduces additional functional groups in the diffusion pathways, resulting in increase of flux rate and rejection rate for the organic dyes. Amyloid fibrils also provide structural assistance to …

Characterization Of S-Swcnt/Pf-Pd Dispersions And Networks, Tamara N. El-Hayek Ms., Jeffrey Blackburn, Andrew Ferguson, Tammy Pheuphong

STAR Program Research Presentations

Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) are being investigated for their use in a wide variety of renewable energy applications. Their unique physical properties contribute to desirable traits such as a high carrier mobility, strong optical absorption and tunable electronic band gap. Unfortunately, due to variability in certain parameters, SWCNTs are limited in their application. The major drawback is that SWCNTs are variable in size and type and typical synthetic methods are not selective. As a result, selective methods must be developed in order to sort these tubes and extract those which are desirable for a particular application. Though there are several …

Toward High Performance Nanocarbon Fibers, Michaela R. Pfau

Master's Theses

High performance carbon fibers (CFs) have been a commercially available since their commercial boom in the 1970s, and are generally produced via carbonization of poly (acrylonitrile) (PAN). More recently, carbon nanomaterials like graphene and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been discovered and have shown excellent mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties due to their sp² carbon repeating structure. Graphene and CNTs can both be organized into macroscopic fibers using a number of different techniques, resulting in fibers with promising mechanical performance that can be readily multifunctionalized. In some cases, the two materials have been combined, and the resulting hybrid fibers have …

Synthesis Of Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (Poss) Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes For Improved Dispersion In Polyurethane Films, Xiaonan Kou

Dissertations

Carbon nanotube (CNT) polymer nanocomposites are promising advanced materials. These materials exhibit the advantages of traditional polymeric materials, such as being light weight and easy to process, combined with the potential to exhibit enhanced mechanical, thermal and electrical properties compared to pure polymers. To achieve substantial improvement of composite properties at low CNT loading, uniform dispersion of CNTs in the polymer matrix and strong CNT-polymer interfacial interaction are needed. However, it is difficult to achieve adequate dispersion and interfacial interactions due to the inert nature of CNTs. In this project, polyhedral oligomeric silsequioxane (POSS) will be used as a dispersing …

Synthesis And Characterizations Of Pyridinium Salts Including Poly(Pyridinium Salt)S And Their Applications, Tae Soo Jo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Pyridinium salts, both molecular and polymeric, are an interesting class of multifunctional materials that exhibit liquid-crystalline and light-emitting properties. Moreover, their properties can be easily tuned by introducing new types of anions or by modifying their chemical structures. This dissertation describes synthesis and characterization of poly(pyridinium salt)s containing macrocounterions and fluorene moieties in their backbones, synthesis and characterization of nanocomposites of poly(pyridinium salt)s with single-walled carbon nanotubes via non-covalent interactions, and synthesis and characterizations of pyridinium salts having different aliphatic linkages and their application in organic acid sensing.

First, all of these ionic polymers were prepared by either ring-transmutation or …

Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes-Modified Polymer Organic Photovoltaics, Tzu-Fan Chen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Since the carbon nanotubes were first discovered by Iijima in 1991, CNTs have been the focus of intense research by many groups. Nearly 7000 papers and 700 theses on carbon nanotubes can be found from the eminent journals such as Nature and Science in the last decade. Since carbon nanotubes show impressive mechanical, physical and electronic properties such as high stiffness, high strength, low density, and excellent thermal conductivity, suggesting its role in light-weight high strength material application. A great quantity of important research has evidently been done in this field. The purpose of this thesis research is to investigate …

Polyaniline And Its Derivatives For Environmental Analysis., Atogho Jude Abia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrooxidation has been used to deposit thin film polyaniline as well as its derivative - thin film poly (ortho-phenylenediamine) (POPD) and poly (meta-phenylenediamine) (PMPD) on carbon electrodes, which are subsequently used to monitor the environmental heavy metal ions (Hg²⁺, Pb²⁺ ,Cd²⁺) through a rather unusual "blocking" of anodic stripping for these metals. Using Hg²⁺ as a model, its cyclic voltammogram for a modified glassy carbon electrode with the resultant polymer shows an enhanced cathodic peak that increases linearly with the analyte ion concentration. POPD also exhibits unique selective detection for organic species. Acetaminophen and …