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Rapid urban industrialization and agricultural production have led to the discharge of excessive phosphate into aquatic systems, resulting in a rise in water pollution. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore efficient phosphate removal technologies. Herein, a novel phosphate capture nanocomposite (PEI−PW@Zr) with mild preparation conditions, environmental friendliness, recyclability, and high efficiency has been developed by modifying aminated nanowood with a zirconium (Zr) component. The Zr component imparts the ability to capture phosphate to the PEI−PW@Zr, while the porous structure provides a mass transfer channel, resulting in excellent adsorption efficiency. Additionally, the nanocomposite maintains more than 80% phosphate adsorption efficiency even after ten adsorption–desorption cycles, indicating its recyclability and potential for repeated use. This compressible nanocomposite provides novel insights into the design of efficient phosphate removal cleaners and offers potential approaches for the functionalization of biomass−based composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel micro/nanoscale rough structured superhydrophilic hybrid-coated mesh that shows underwater superoleophobic behavior is fabricated by spray casting or dipping nanoparticle–polymer suspensions on stainless steel mesh substrates. Water droplets can spread over the mesh completely; meanwhile, oil droplets can roll off the mesh at low tilt angles without any penetration. Besides overcoming the oil-fouling problem of many superhydrophilic coatings, this superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic mesh can be used to separate oil and water. The simple method used here to prepare the organic–inorganic hybrid coatings successfully produced controllable micro-nano binary roughness and also achieved a rough topography of micro-nano binary structure by controlling the content of inorganic particles. The mechanism of oil–water separation by the superhydrophilic and superoleophobic membrane is rationalized by considering capillary mechanics. Tetraethyl orathosilicate (TEOS) as a base was used to prepare the nano-SiO2 solution as a nano-dopant through a sol-gel process, while polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as the film binder and glutaraldehyde as the cross-linking agent; the mixture was dip-coated on the surface of 300-mesh stainless steel mesh to form superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic film. Properties of nano-SiO2 represented by infrared spectroscopy and surface topography of the film observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) indicated that the film surface had a coarse micro–nano binary structure; the effect of nano-SiO2 doping amount on the film's surface topography and the effect of such surface topography on hydrophilicity of the film were studied; contact angle of water on such surface was tested as 0° by the surface contact angle tester and spread quickly; the underwater contact angle to oil was 158°, showing superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic properties. The effect of the dosing amount of cross-linking agent to the waterproof swelling property and the permeate flux of the film were studied; the oil–water separation effect of the film to oil–water suspension and oil–water emulsion was studied too, and in both cases the separation efficiency reached 99%, which finally reduced the oil content to be lower than 50 mg/L. The effect of filtration times to permeate flux was studied, and it was found that the more hydrophilic the film was, the stronger the stain resistance would be, and the permeate flux would gradually decrease along with the increase of filtration times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of social economy, problems such as volatile organic compound (VOC) pollution and the excessive consumption of global petroleum resources have become increasingly prominent. People are beginning to realize that these problems not only affect the ecological environment, but also hinder the development of the organic polymer material industry based on raw fossil materials. Therefore, the modification and application of bio-based materials are of theoretical and practical significance. In this study, a series of vegetable oil-based acrylate prepolymers were synthesized by one-step acrylation using palm oil, olive oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, corn oil, canola oil, and grapeseed oil as raw materials, and the effect of different double bond contents on the product structure and grafting rate was investigated. Furthermore, the as-prepared vegetable oil-based acrylate prepolymers, polyurethane acrylate (PUA-2665), trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA), and photoinitiator (PI-1173) were mixed thoroughly to prepare ultraviolet (UV)-curable films. The effect of different grafting numbers on the properties of these films was investigated. The results showed that as the degree of unsaturation increased, the acrylate grafting number and the cross-linking density increased, although the acrylation (grafting reaction) rate decreased. The reason was mainly because increasing the double bond content could accelerate the reaction rate, while the grafted acrylic groups had a steric hindrance effect to prevent the adjacent double bonds from participating in the reaction. Furthermore, the increase in grafting number brought about the increase in the structural functionality of prepolymers and the cross-linking density of cured films, which led to the enhancement in the thermal (glass transition temperature) and mechanical (tensile strength, Young's modulus) properties of the cured films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]