Saavedra Valencia, Lina M.

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    Use of polydimethyl siloxane microparticles for the sequestering of model pollutants in water
    (2009) Saavedra Valencia, Lina M.; De Jesús Ruiz, Marco A.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Vera, Marisol; Román, Félix R.; Department of Chemistry; Briano, Julio
    Polymer micro and nanoparticles are an emerging type of material with promising applications for remediation and degradation of environmental contaminants in water, due to their enhanced surface area and chemical reactivity. Such benefits have also raised public concern due to the impending risk for nanomaterials to exacerbate a variety of conditions similar to those shown by natural micro and nanoparticles like suspended particulate matter. In this work, the selection of organic compounds was made searching structural similarities with model contaminants common of waters in Puerto Rico. These organic compounds entered in contact with colloidal polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microparticles and polystyrene nanoparticles (PNP) to study their sequestration power. The interaction process was monitored by high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection. The results showed that PDMS microparticles can sequester over 90% of these organic compounds forming an easily filterable coagulate; while PNP sorptive properties were negligible. Exposing the samples to UV-VIS radiation showed that although the limited sorption of PNP, their enhanced surface area increase the photodecomposition of the analytes under aerobic conditions.