We report that nanoparticulate zirconia (ZrO(2)) catalyzes both growth of single-wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and graphitization of solid amorphous carbon. We observe that silica-, silicon nitride-, and alumina-supported zirconia on silicon nucleates single- and multiwall carbon nanotubes upon exposure to hydrocarbons at moderate temperat...

A number of polymers used in the production of carriers for drug delivery applications, possessing high surface area, appropriate surface chemistry and porosity, chemical stability and low cost have been investigated. One of these promising candidates are natural polysaccharides such as alginic acid sodium salt, guar gum, xanthan gum and chitosan due to their outstanding merits. They are simila...

Polyurea-crosslinked alginate (X-M-alginate; M: Co, Ni, Cu) aerogels, prepared from the corresponding M-alginate wet-gels and aromatic triisocyanate Desmodur RE, are precursors for metal- nitrogen-doped carbon (X-M-C) aerogels.

Ultra-light aerogels have been assembled from cellulose nanofibrils into hierarchically macroporous (several hundred μm) honeycomb cellular structure surrounded with mesoporous (8-60nm) thin walls. The high specific surface (193m2/g) and surface carboxyl content (1.29mmol/g) of these aerogels were demonstrated to be highly capable of removing cationic malachite green (MG) dye from aqueous media...

To reduce energy losses due to the insufficient thermal insulation is one of current “hot” topics. Various commercial porous materials are used with best conductivity around 0.03–0.04 W/(m·K). Aerogels only known “intrinsic” superinsulating properties, i.e. below that air in ambient conditions (0.025 W/(m·K)). The classical aerogels based on silica and some synthetic polymers, 0.014–0.018 natur...

Porous starch materials with various morphology and properties were made via dissolution, retrogradation drying either supercritical CO2 (“aerogels”) or lyophilisation (“cryogels”). Their correlated the rheological response of retrograded gels crystallinity aerogels cryogels. All cryogels possess very low density (0.07 – 0.16 g/cm3), large macropores specific surface area (around 3–13 m2/g). is...

Gelation of tannin-formaldehyde (TF) solutions was systematically investigated by changing pH and concentration of TF resin in water. In this way we constructed the TF phase diagram, from which chemical hydrogels could be described, and also synthesized thermoreversible tannin-based hydrogels. Conditions of non-gelation were also determined. Hydrogels were dried in supercritical CO2, leading to...

Pharmaceutical and biomedical industries demand simple, safe and reproducible processing methods thus urging the development of novel straightforward manufacturing approaches. The product manufacturing by the green processing of admixtures and end-product would avoid long and costly purification (downstream) steps. In this work, the supercritical fluid technology is used for the green processin...