XIANRONG SHEN^1,*, DENGZHOU XIA¹, YIXIN XIANG¹, JIANGANG GAO¹

Journal of Polymer Materials, Vol.36, No.3, pp. 229-241, 2019, DOI:10.32381/JPM.2019.36.03.3

Abstract ARGET ATRP of methyl acrylate (MA) with low concentration of air stable-CuBr₂ catalyst was successfully carried out in green solvent polyethylene glycol (PEG) without any external reducing agent.The polymerizations of MA proceeded in a well-controlled manner as evidenced by kinetic studies, chain extension results, a linear increase of the molecular weights with the increasing of monomer conversion. and narrow molecular weight distribution (M_w/M_n =1.1). Interestingly, we found that the PEG has the reduction ability to CuBr₂ and could play as supplement reducing agent cooperation with Me₆ TREN to mediate ARGET ATRP. Reduction of Cu(II)Br₂ to Cu(I)Br by different molecular weight… More >

Muayad M. Hasan^1,*, Firas K. Al-Zuhairi², Anfal H. Sadeq¹, Rana A. Azeez¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.19, No.11, pp. 2827-2835, 2023, DOI:10.32604/fdmp.2023.027746

Abstract Solvents are generally used to reduce the viscosity of heavy crude oil and ultimately enhance oil recovery. Recently, a new method has been introduced where nanoparticles (NPs) are exploited to induce enhanced oil recovery owing to their ability to improve the mobility ratio, dampen the interfacial tension, and alter rock wettability. This study investigated the integration of nano-alumina (Al₂O₃) NPs with an n-hexane solvent. In particular, a Brookfield viscometer has been used to measure the crude oil viscosity and it has been found that NPs can effectively lead to a significant decrease in the overall oil viscosity (70 cp using… More >

Penghui Li^1,2, Zhengwei Jiang², Chi Yang², Jianpeng Ren^1,2, Bo Jiang^1,2, Wenjuan Wu^1,2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.11, No.5, pp. 2233-2248, 2023, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2023.025279

Abstract Lignin is a natural polymer, second only to cellulose in natural reserves. Degradation is one of the ways to achieve the high-value transformation of lignin. Deep eutectic solvent (DES) thermal degradation of lignin can be used as an excellent green degradation method. This paper introduces the degradation mechanism and effect of the lactic acid-choline chloride DES system in dissolving and degrading alkaline lignin, and the final solvent recovery. It can also be found from the scanning electron microscope (SEM) images that the surface of the degraded solid product is transformed from smooth to disordered. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and… More > Graphic Abstract

Abderrezzaq Benalia^1,2, Kerroum Derbal^2,*, Amel Khalfaoui¹, Antonio Pizzi³, Ghouti Medjahdi⁴

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.10, No.3, pp. 625-637, 2022, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2022.017848

Abstract The purpose of this work is the study the ability of the plant material Aloe vera to act as natural coagulant using raw water obtained from a drinking water treatment plant (Mila, Algeria). Different solvents such as: NaCl; NaOH and HCl were used as chemical activators to extract the active components from the Aloe vera plant, and different coagulation-flocculation experiments were conducted in a jar test apparatus to evaluate the performance of the extracted coagulant. Also, the effect of coagulant dose on some water parameters such as turbidity, pH, total alkalinity and organic matter were investigated. The results showed that… More > Graphic Abstract

Wenli Gu¹, Shiyi Zeng¹, Assima Dauletbek², Bin Xu^1,3,*, Xinzhou Wang¹, Man Yuan¹, Yanni Gu¹

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.10, No.2, pp. 385-399, 2022, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2022.016457

Abstract Bamboo vascular bundle fiber and parenchyma (BP) are separated by high-temperature treatment with saturated steam. Bamboo vascular bundle fiber is widely used in the market, but how to develop and utilize parenchyma tissue is a difficult problem. The sulfated cellulose nanofibers (ANFs) were obtained by sulfating BP with a deep eutectic solvent (DES), which provided a theoretical basis for the value-added utilization of BP. Using DES as the reaction medium and reagent, the BP was grafted with a sulfonic acid group to form a gel substance in water, ANFs and nanocellulose gel were obtained by ultrasonic cell crusher. The highest… More > Graphic Abstract

Lei Tan, Liangxian Liu, Chaodong Liu, Weihong Wang^*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.9, No.11, pp. 1897-1911, 2021, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.016418

Abstract As the most favorable alternative to petroleum-based polymers, polylactic acid (PLA) which is the most promising degradable polymer has attracted increasing attention. However, the addition of cellulose to improve its strength often results in a reduction in its toughness. In this work, microscale cellulose is first prepared from pulp fibers by using a deep eutectic solvent, and then is used as the reinforcement of PLA. A microcrystalline cellulose (MCC)/PLA sheet with uniform texture is obtained by the solution mixing, melt blending, hot-pressing and cold-pressing process. The effects of MCC on the crystallization, thermal stability and mechanical properties of the PLA… More >

Hao Dou^1,2,*, Hongxia Liu^1,2, Feng Wang^1,2, Yanli Sun^1,2

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.17, No.3, pp. 629-638, 2021, DOI:10.32604/fdmp.2021.015612

Abstract Electrospinning is a versatile and popular method for the fabrication of ultrafine fibers and many parameters in electrospinning can be adjusted when ideal micro/nanofibers are required. In particular, the selection of a proper solvent condition is a fundamental and crucial step to produce electrospun ultrafine fibers. In this study, a commonly used biomaterial, polylactic acid (PLA), was dissolved in 7 different solvents and PLA micro/nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning. The morphology, porosity, mechanical property and static contact angle were characterized to determine the quality of the obtained product. The results show that different solvent conditions have a significant effect on… More >

Lifen Li¹, Zhigang Wu¹, Xuedong Xi², Baoyu Liu³, Yan Cao³, Hailong Xu³, Yingcheng Hu^4,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.9, No.2, pp. 219-235, 2021, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2021.012099

Abstract Lignin is an abundant renewable macromolecular material in nature, and degradation of lignin to improve its hydroxyl content is the key to its efficient use. Alkali lignin (AL) was treated with Brønsted acidic deep eutectic solvent (DES) based on choline chloride and p-toluenesulfonic acid at mild reaction temperature, the structure of the lignin before and after degradation, as well as the composition of small molecules of lignin were analyzed in order to investigate the chemical structure changes of lignin with DES treatment, and the degradation mechanism of lignin in this acidic DES was elucidated in this work. FTIR and NMR… More >

Ningning Wang¹, Caili Zhang^1,2,*, Wenqin Zhu³, Yunxuan Weng^1,2,*

Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.8, No.9, pp. 1139-1149, 2020, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2020.09961

Abstract To clarify the effects of lignin as a biodegradable filler added into the PLA matrix, PLA/lignin composites with or without silane coupling agent of γ- (2,3-epoxypropoxy)propy trimethoxysilane (KH560) were prepared by a one-step solvent-free modification method. The effects of KH560 as a compatibilizer on the morphology, chemical structure, crystallization behavior, thermal degradative behavior as well as mechanical strength of the PLA/lignin composites were analyzed in detail. It was found that, after modification by KH560, the fractured surfaces of composites became smooth, suggested sufficient bonding between the lignin and PLA in the composites with KH560 coupling agent molecules. This result further… More >

Amin Bemani¹, Alireza Baghban², Shahaboddin Shamshirband^{3, 4, *}, Amir Mosavi^{5, 6, 7}, Peter Csiba⁷, Annamaria R. Varkonyi-Koczy^{5, 7}

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.63, No.3, pp. 1175-1204, 2020, DOI:10.32604/cmc.2020.07723

Abstract In the present work, a novel machine learning computational investigation is carried out to accurately predict the solubility of different acids in supercritical carbon dioxide. Four different machine learning algorithms of radial basis function, multi-layer perceptron (MLP), artificial neural networks (ANN), least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) are used to model the solubility of different acids in carbon dioxide based on the temperature, pressure, hydrogen number, carbon number, molecular weight, and the dissociation constant of acid. To evaluate the proposed models, different graphical and statistical analyses, along with novel sensitivity analysis, are carried out.… More >