Comparsion of Catalyst Effectiveness in Different Chemical Depolymerization Methods of Poly(ethylene terephthalate).

This paper presents an overview of the chemical recycling methods of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) described in the scientific literature in recent years. The review focused on methods of chemical recycling of PET including hydrolysis and broadly understood alcoholysis of polymer ester bonds including methanolysis, ethanolysis, glycolysis and reactions with higher alcohols. The depolymerization methods used in the literature are described, with particular emphasis on the use of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts and ionic liquids, as well as auxiliary substances such as solvents and cosolvents. Important process parameters such as temperature, reaction time, and pressure are compared. Detailed experimental results are presented focusing on reaction yields to allow for easy comparison of applied catalysts and for determination of the most favorable reaction conditions and methods.

The image of old age emerging from place personalization in older adults' dwellings.

This paper aims to present the process of older adults' place personalization and the image of old age emerging from it. The focus is on the material environment where participants live. This environment reveals one of the many layers of becoming an older adult. Results indicate that older people are strongly integrated into the place in which they live, and the components of this process are presented. The dwelling place echoes the acquired identity of an older person in many dimensions-physical, biographical, aesthetic, and axiological. Following main themes were generated inductively from the data, which reveals two aspects of place: the structural aspect, relating to the objects gathered - (personal belongings, aestheticization of place with objects of biographical significance, objects pointing to values), and the agency aspect, relating to the characteristic activities that older adults engage in where they live (place adaptation, command center, and customization of objects and actions). The context of the current discussion is the knowledge provided by environmental gerontology and an identity perspective on both collective and individual aspects of housing. The study was based on qualitative data-photographs of the interiors of older adult's dwellings and transcripts of conversations obtained using the photowalking technique. The analysis and interpretation of the research material was performed in accordance with visual grounded theory methodology. Findings can be used to design an environment for older adults, which may improve their quality of life. It is crucial when designing rooms in residential care homes and when sensitizing their staff to the need to provide residents with appropriate space for accumulating, storing, and displaying familiar and important objects rooted in their values, biographies, and established rituals.

Electrically tunable Berry curvature and strong light-matter coupling in liquid crystal microcavities with 2D perovskite.

The field of spinoptronics is underpinned by good control over photonic spin-orbit coupling in devices that have strong optical nonlinearities. Such devices might hold the key to a new era of optoelectronics where momentum and polarization degrees of freedom of light are interwoven and interfaced with electronics. However, manipulating photons through electrical means is a daunting task given their charge neutrality. In this work, we present electrically tunable microcavity exciton-polariton resonances in a Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling field. We show that different spin-orbit coupling fields and the reduced cavity symmetry lead to tunable formation of the Berry curvature, the hallmark of quantum geometrical effects. For this, we have implemented an architecture of a photonic structure with a two-dimensional perovskite layer incorporated into a microcavity filled with nematic liquid crystal. Our work interfaces spinoptronic devices with electronics by combining electrical control over both the strong light-matter coupling conditions and artificial gauge fields.

Hydroxy-Functionalized Basic Ionic Liquids-An Unexpected "Hydroxy" Effect on the Transesterification of Glycerides with Methanol.

New task-specific ionic liquids, hydroxy-functionalized 1-methyl-3-alkylimidazolium hydroxides, were used as catalysts in the transesterification of rapeseed oil with methanol. In comparison to the well-described 1-methyl-3-butylimidazolium hydroxide [bmim]OH, the new ionic liquids show unexpectedly high catalytic activity. In case of the ionic liquid [glymim]OH, which is structurally similar to glycerol, the conversion of rapeseed oil was nearly 100 %.