Greasy raw wool for cleanup process of marine oil spill

Greasy raw wool, as sheared, was proposed as natural, cost effective adsorbent material for oil recovery and remediation of marine surface contaminated by oil spills. In this way, an effective cleaning of sea surface can be coupled with the revaluation of a sheep breeding waste, suitable for the purpose thanks to its oilphilic behaviour. A characterization of wools of different origin was carried out by sorption test of IFO 380 oil, either pure or mixed with Diesel, layered on a water surface. The wool has been characterized in terms of humidity, lipids, adherent and not adherent dirt while viscosity, density and surface tension were evaluated for the different oil mixes. Preliminary tests on the process efficiency, performed with reduced volumes of water and oil in a static system, assessed the sorption kinetics, the yield of the process for fresh wool and the number of sorption-regeneration cycles at which the wool can be submitted without reduction of the original adsorption properties. The obtained results were used to set a scaled up series of tests, on a pilot prototype, suitable for reproduce the real recovery conditions of a ship on the sea. The possible destination of the exhausted wool was also taken into account. The obtained results suggest that wool wastes can be a suitable sorbent material for spilled oil recovery on marine surfaces, with performance that are competitive with the materials of synthetic origin proposed for similar applications

Sol-Gel Process for Surface Modification of Leather

Applications in the textile field of sol-gel processes were widely investigated since coatings of fabrics by materials of nanometric size obtained by sol-gel methods represent a functional surface modification attracting even more attention. However, few experiences of the use of nanostructured coatings are reported for leather finishing. In the experiments reported in the present chapter, a nabuk leather was finished by a sol-gel process to confer hydro and oil-repellency. The silica component could act as a protective coating, improving the rubbing performance of the substrate and conferring a certain grade of hydrorepellency, while the oil repellency was due to a fluorocarbon component. The coatings were applied at low add-on of finishing agent with the aim to keep possibly unvaried the esthetic and hand characteristics of the original leather. Contact angle and sorption time measurements of water and oil drops were carried out on the treated samples and compared with the untreated one. A similar comparison was made by testing color fastness to rubbing and change of esthetic appearance. Finally, chemical surface characterization was carried out by Fourier Transform Infrared in Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR) analysis

UV Treatments on Cotton Fibers

Ultraviolet (UV) radiations can act in different ways on the functionalization of textiles, through pre- or posttreatments, in order to modify their behavior in dyeing and finishing processes. In cotton fiber, unlike the wool, the UV absorption is not due to any of the structural groups of the normal cellulosic chains and can only be attributed to “impurities” or “faults” bearing carbonyl and/or carboxyl groups. In fact, UV irradiation coupled with mild oxidation can improve some properties of the cotton fibers such as pilling resistance, water swelling, and dyeability. Therefore, the process of differential dyeing with direct and reactive dyes assisted by UV irradiation was studied and interesting differential chromatic effects were obtained by a UV posttreatment capable to fade dyeing. On the other hand, the surface modification of cotton fabrics by UV curing and UV grafting with suitable chemicals was pursued to obtain finishing treatments able to confer oil and/or water repellency. Finally, antimicrobial finishing by chitosan UV grafting was proposed as valid environmental friendly method to confer a satisfactory washing-resistant antimicrobial activity to cotton fabrics even with low polymer add-on

Novel Antimicrobial Agents and Processes for Textile Applications

The use of antimicrobial compounds in textiles has grown dramatically over the last decades. The potential application field is wide. It ranges from industrial textiles exposed to weather such as awnings, screens and tents; upholstery used in large public areas such as hospitals, hotels and stations; fabrics for transports; protective clothing and personal protective equipment; bed sheets and blankets; textiles left wet between processing steps; intimate apparel, underwear, socks and sportswear. Another large field of application is in filtration and disinfection of air and water for white rooms, hospitals and operating theatres, food and pharmaceutical industries, water depuration, drinkable water supplying and air-conditioning systems. The present chapter is a review of recent research works related to antimicrobial finishes for textile materials. Several examples of antimicrobial treatments (e.g. traditional pad-dry-cure technique, exhaustion bath, encapsulation, electrospinning, cross-linking, etc.) were reported. The antimicrobial agents were divided by their origin from synthesis or from natural sources. Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), Triclosan, metals (including metal oxides and salts), polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB), N-halamines and conjugated polymers (i.e. polypyrrole) were listed as synthetic biocides in textile applications. Extracts from plants (e.g. aromatic compounds, essential oils and dyes), antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and chitosan were considered among natural-based biocides

Routine Monitoring of Trace Arsenic in Water by Lab-on-a-chip Technology: a Preliminary Study

Water contamination by Arsenic poses a serious risk for human health, due to its manifold toxic effects. The concern is mainly for drinking water, regarded as the most imperative route of Arsenic exposure to human beings. The maximum concentration limit for Arsenic in drinking water was fixed by World Health Organisation (WHO) at 10 μg L−1 but in many developing nations it is increased to 50 μg L−1 due to economic constraints to detect lower concentrations. In this scenario, the design of an affordable Arsenic sensor, for routine monitoring of water, is crucial. The answer to these requirements can be the lab-on–a-chip technology applied to a microfluidic device. Available detection methods for Arsenic are investigated, focusing on their potential application on a portable monitoring device: among them a colorimetric method, based on Rodamine B as indicator, and chronopotentiometry were selected as suitable for the required purpose. Preliminary laboratory tests were aimed to determine the limit of Arsenic concentration detectable by both the methods; the lower value of 1 μg L−1 was detected by chronopotentiometry, in good agreement with the required resolution of the measurement. Moreover, a process optimization adapted the method for the microfluidic technology. Obtained results point out the new developing lab-on-a-chip technology as good candidate to address the need for a capillary and frequent monitoring of Arsenic contamination of water by an easy and cheap portable device

Miniaturization and Optimization of the Standard Spectrophotometric Analysis for Autonomous, Continuous and On-site Heavy Metal Detection in Water

Water environmental monitoring is an important key to control both human life and environment health. When water quality is poor, it affects not only aquatic life but the surrounding ecosystem as well. The greatest limitation of detection devices, today on the market, is that they are limited to the measurement phase, burdening the operator of the previous sample treatment. The development of a threshold monitoring device, designed for real time water environmental monitoring, was the aim of this study. The focus was on the design of an autonomous system for detection of dissolved heavy metals in water by spectrophotometric analysis. The ground-breaking idea is the implementation of a system inspired to the latest innovative techniques in the field of the microfluidic analysis, based on Lab-on-Chip concept. Such a choice is due to the unique advantages in terms of reduction of sample and reagents volumes, energy budget and analysis times, besides the possible multi-element analysis on the same sample

Spectrophotometric Detection of Nickel in Water by Lab-on-a-chip Technology: Application to Electroplating

Nickel is a metal member of the transition series in the periodic table, and as such shows outstanding properties interesting to the world of industry, namely corrosion resistance to air, water and alkali and electrical conductivity. In fact, nickel is widely employed in electroplating, where high analyte concentrations, up to 100g/L, are required to achieve excellent final results. The process monitoring is required not only to ensure constant and adequate metal-finishing concentration but also to guarantee the safety of wastewater products. To detect nickel, either in high and low metal concentration, a colorimetric method was selected. The spectrophotometric study reveals a well-defined absorption peak at 396nm, giving a calibration curve with remarkable linearity toward metal concentrations, ranging from 1 to 22g/L. By proper optimization process, the detection field can be simply enlarged at least from 100 g/L (100000ppm) to 3*10-3 g/L (3ppm). Due to the presence of an acid part in the electroplating bath, the behaviour of the metal in an acid solution has also been investigated, and the calibration curve still depicts a good linearity of the system. Achieved results pointed out the suggested colorimetric method as a promising candidate for addressing the requirement for capillary and regular monitoring of nickel in water, throughout a wide range of concentrations.The laboratory method may be readily improved and adapted for microfluidic technology by lowering sample and reagent amounts, miniaturizing sensors, and automating the entire process, from sampling to data recover

Direct Online Environment Monitoring of Water Pollution

Water pollution is one of the most serious ecological threats we face today. Each water body is affected by some organic, inorganic or adioactive pollutant, coming from direct or indirect sources. Surface water and ground water must currently be monitored in all countries on a very large scale by public authorities, but also private companies, to enforce pollution reduction and environmental law compliance. Most of the controls are performed by manually sampling the waters and by sending the samples to an authorized laboratory for the analysis, with high costs, long response times, low sampling frequency and consequent low monitoring data resolution. The research aims to develop methods and to design a device able to perform the sampling, preparation and detecting automatically. The proposed system in fact can be easily installed on site and, once configured and positioned, smart sensors can send analytical data direct ly to the customer with no human intervention. It involves no costs for sampling activities, response times reduced to few minutes and the possibility to achieve high sampling frequency and a consequent strict monitoring of the evolution of the site status. Moreover, the device will be able to collect and share data, according to IoT technology