Synthesis and characterization of guar gum templated hybrid nano silica.

The objective of the present study was the fabrication of green adsorbent hybrids for which native guar gum was used as template to polymerize tetraethoxysilane. The properties and performances of the hybrids could be tailored by using varying molecular sizes of the partially depolymerized guar gum templates of various molecular sizes as control. Zn(II) uptake from aqueous solution was used as a criterion for evaluating the adsorbent efficiency. The optimum material (H4) in terms of maximum Zn(II) uptake, was obtained when the template size used was 375 kDa at a calcination temperature of 700°C. H4 was also evaluated for Ca(II), Mg(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) adsorption. To explore the other applicability areas, the hybrids have been extensively characterized using FTIR, XRD, TGA-DTA, PL, SEM, TEM and BET analyses. H4 was found to be as efficient as previously reported vinyl modified-silica nanohybrids. It had a high surface area (264 m(2)/g) with silica nanoparticles in the size range of 90-140 nm. Being thermally very stable and photoluminescent, the material can be potentially used for many biological, medical and environmental applications.

Poly(methylmethacrylate) grafted chitosan: An efficient adsorbent for anionic azo dyes.

Present study reports on peroxydisulfate/ascorbic acid initiated synthesis of Chitosan-graft-poly(methylmethacrylate) (Ch-g-PMMA) and its characterization by FTIR, XRD and (13)C NMR. The copolymer remained water insoluble even under highly acidic conditions and was evaluated to be an efficient adsorbent for the three anionic azo dyes (Procion Yellow MX, Remazol Brilliant Violet and Reactive Blue H5G) over a wide pH range of 4-10 being most at pH 7. The adsorbent was also found efficient in decolorizing the textile industry wastewater and was much more efficient than the parent chitosan. Equilibrium sorption experiments were carried out at different pH and initial dye concentration values. The experimental equilibrium data for each adsorbent-dye system were successfully fitted to the Langmuir and Freundlich sorption isotherms. Based on Langmuir model Q(max) for yellow, violet and blue dyes was 250, 357 and 178, respectively. Thermodynamic parameters of the adsorption processes such as DeltaG degrees , DeltaH degrees , and DeltaS degrees were calculated. The negative values of free energy reflected the spontaneous nature of adsorption. The adsorption kinetic data of all the three dyes could be well represented by pseudo-second-order model with the correlation coefficients (R(2)) being 0.9922, 0.9997 and 0.9862, for direct yellow, reactive violet and blue dye, respectively with rate constants 0.91 x 10(-4), 1.82 x 10(-4) and 1.05 x 10(-4) g mg(-1)min(-1), respectively. At pH 7, parent chitosan also showed pseudo-second-order kinetics. The temperature dependence of dye uptake and the pseudo-second-order kinetics of the adsorption indicated that chemisorption is the rate-limiting step that controls the process.

Analyzing pesticide residues in winter vegetables from Kanpur.

Pesticide residues in food has become a consumer safety issue. The consumer has a right to know how much pesticide gets incorporated in the food he eats. In the first phase of our analysis on pesticides, we identified the problem of pesticide residues in fresh winter vegetables as offered to the consumer of Kanpur. To provide a meaningful ranking of pesticides in crop, for our study we chose twelve most commonly used pesticides and 24 samples of freshly collected vegetables.