Fabrication of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Fiber@Microporous Organic Polymer with Amino Groups@Cu Films for Flexible and Metal-Economical Electromagnetic Interference Shielding Materials.

Flexible and metal-economical electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding films were fabricated based on microporous organic polymer (MOP) chemistry. MOP with amino groups (MOP-A) could be introduced to the surface of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fibers. Due to the microporosity and amino groups of MOP-A, Ag+ could be easily incorporated into PET@MOP-A. Through Ag-catalyzed electroless Cu deposition, PET@MOP-A@Cu films were fabricated. The morphological and chemical structures of the PET@MOP-A@Cu were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction studies, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Among the films, the PET@MOP-A@Cu-40 with 41 wt % Cu (a thickness of 0.64 µm) showed excellent EMI shielding performance with 64.3-73.8 dB against an EM of 8-12 GHz. Moreover, it showed retention of the original EMI shielding performance against 1000 bending (R = 5 mm) tests.

Glutaraldehyde-crosslinked chitosan beads for sorptive separation of Au(III) and Pd(II): opening a way to design reduction-coupled selectivity-tunable sorbents for separation of precious metals.

Glutaraldehyde (GA)-crosslinked chitosan beads (GA-CS) are prepared with coagulating solution containing sodium tripolyphosphate and GA, and used for the adsorption of metals from binary-metal solution Au(III) and Pd(II). GA-CS exhibited selective sorption of Au(III) in the Au(III)-Pd(II) mixture. X-ray diffraction analyses showed that Au(III) was reduced to Au(0) following sorption, while Pd(II) was present as unreduced divalent form. Increased GA led to more selectivity toward Au(III), indicating that Au(III) selectivity is attributed to reduction-couple sorption of Au(III) with a reducing agent GA. Furthermore, a 2-step desorption process enabled selective recovery of Pd and Au using 5M HCl and 0.5M thiourea-1M HCl, respectively, leading to pure Pd(II) and Au(III)-enriched solutions. This finding may open a new way to design reduction-coupled selectivity-tunable metal sorbents by combination of redox potentials of metal ions and reducing agents.

Recovery of gold as a type of porous fiber by using biosorption followed by incineration.

This study introduces a new process for the recovery of gold in porous fiber form by the incineration of Au-loaded biosorbent fiber from gold-cyanide solutions. For the recovery of gold from such aqueous solutions, polyethylenimine (PEI)-modified bacterial biosorbent fiber (PBBF) and PEI-modified chitosan fiber (PCSF) were developed and used. The maximum uptakes of Au(I) ions were estimated as 421.1 and 251.7 mg/g at pH 5.5 for PBBF and PCSF, respectively. Au-loaded biosorbents were freeze-dried and then incinerated to oxidize their organic constituents while simultaneously obtaining reduced gold. As a result, porous metallic gold fibers were obtained with 60 µm of diameter. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis and mercury porosimetry revealed the fibers to have 60 µm of diameter and to be highly porous and hollow. The proposed process therefore offers the potential for the efficient recovery of metallic porous gold fibers using combined biosorption and incineration.