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Tunable Properties of Functional Nanoparticles for Efficient Capture of VOCs

Abstract:

A number of nanotechnologies have been investigated for the remediation of air pollutants. In our previous work we described a facile synthesis of polyethylenimine (PEI) functionalized poly(D,L-lactic acid)-poly(ethylene glycol) (i. e. PDLLA-PEG) nanoparticles for the target-specific capture of gaseous aldehydes and carboxylic acids. Herein, the effect of the amount of PEI used during functionalization of the PDLLA-PEG nanoparticles was investigated and the results revealed that the gaseous capture is dependent on the amount of PEI present in the final material. Additionally, we investigated the effect of removing the PEG linker on the overall gas capture efficiency. The results revealed that even though a slightly greater reduction of target analyte is observed when employing the PEG in the nanoparticles formulation, the PEG is not necessary to enable the material's ability to capture target gaseous contaminants. PEI-functionalized nanoparticles synthesized without PEG were able to successfully reduce gaseous hexanal samples by 66% upon a 30 min exposure, providing promising results for the decrease of the overall material's production costs. Furthermore, we explored the use of our first generation materials for the gaseous capture of other relevant contaminants, such sulfurous VOCs including dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide. Results revealed reductions of up to 66% and 63%, respectively.