In continuation to our recent study on the synthesis and characterization of starch-silica nanocomposite, in the present study the nanocomposite has been evaluated for the removal of Cd(II) from the aqueous solution. The conditions for the sorption have been optimized and kinetic and thermodynamic studies were performed to understand the adsorption behaviour of the composite. Though the cadmium...

We present the spectral and nonlinear optical properties of ZnO-SiO2 nanocomposites prepared by colloidal chemical synthesis. Obvious enhancement of ultraviolet (UV) emission of the samples is observed, and the strongest UV emission of a typical ZnO-SiO2 nanocomposite is over three times stronger than that of pure ZnO. The nonlinearity of the silica colloid is low, and its nonlinear response ca...

This work mainly aims to manufacture nanocomposite laminates at first. The prepreg AS-4 graphite/PolyEtherEtherKetone laminates were used to make a 16-layered APC-2 laminate of 2 mm thick via curing the modified diaphragm. The nanoparticles of Silica (SiO2) were uniformly spread on the specific interfaces totally about 1-3% by weight of a laminate by sol-gel method. Second, by the results of me...

Polyethylene glycol was easily grafted to silica gel and used as a solid–liquid phase transfer catalyst in the reduction of aromatic nitro compounds. This silica-grafted polyethylene glycol is proved to be an efficient heterogeneous catalyst in the reduction of nitroarenes to the corresponding aromatic amines with zinc powder in water. The reduction reactions proceeded efficiently with exce...

The unique physical and mechanical properties of polymer nanocomposites have been attributed to the interfacial interactions between the organic matrix and nanoscale particles. We demonstrate the potential to tune this interaction between poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and silica nanoparticles, as a function of either nanosilica surface chemistry or polymer reactivity. Functionalized nanosili...

Zn-silica nanocomposite thin films with varying Zn metal content, deposited by atom beam sputtering technique were subjected to 100 MeV Ag ion irradiation. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry reveals the loss of Zn with irradiation, which is observed to be greater from thin films with lower Zn content. The sputtered species collected on carbon-coated transmission electron microscopy (TEM) gr...

A novel hierarchically ordered porous vanado-silicate nanocomposite with interconnecting macroporous windows and meso-microporous walls containing well dispersed vanadyl species has been fabricated and used as a heterogeneous catalyst for the oxidation of a bulky organic molecule, namely cyclooctene.

Highly flexible nanocomposite hydrogels were prepared by using silica nanoparticles (SNPs) as fillers and multi-functional cross-links to graft hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) by free radical polymerization from an aqueous solution. The SNPs were collected by neighboring polymer chains and dispersed uniformly within a PAA matrix. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposite hydrogels wer...