Researches on the Internal Molecular Weight Uniformity of Chitosan Biomaterials

Uniform molecular weight(Mw)chitosan(CS)is highly demanded in medical biomaterial industry.This present article described heterogeneous degradation of CS in aqueous HCl/ethanol solution,in which progress uniform Mw CS was successfully prepared.The Mw distribution of CS was measured by gel permeation chromatography(GPC)analysis.Moreover,the structure and properties of degraded CS were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR),nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy(^1H NMR),X-ray diffraction(XRD)and thermogravimetric(TG)analysis.In addition,the biocompatibility of degraded CS was also assessed by hemolysis rate(HR)measurement.The Mw of CS dramatically decreased from 246 KDa to 76 k Da at the initial 30 min,and stabilized at 18 kDa after 24 h.GPC analysis results showed that the degraded CS molecular become homogenization.FT-IR and 1 H NMR analysis confirmed the basic structure of CS molecular backbone was not destroyed during this progress.Besides,the water solubility of CS was not significantly influenced by this reaction.Moreover,the XRD analysis revealed that crystallinity of degraded CS increased from 70.32% to 99.25%with time.The TG analysis showed improved thermal stability of degraded CS.HR measurement demonstrated the degraded CS possessed excellent biocompatibility.This simple and efficient heterogeneous degradation would open up a new route to produce uniform Mw CS.

Removal of benzotriazole by heterogeneous photoelectro-Fenton like process using ZnFe_2O_4 nanoparticles as catalyst

ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles （ZFNPs） were developed as catalyst for the degradation of benzotriazole （BTA） by heterogeneous photoelectro- Fenton （PE-Fenton） like process. ZFNPs were prepared by a co-precipitation process and then characterized with transmission electron microscopy （TEM）, X-ray fluorescence （XRF）, X-ray diffraction （XRD） and BET surface area. Using such ZFNPs as catalyst, the degradation of BTA was investigated. Due to the high catalytic activity of ZFNPs, PE-Fenton like process showed efficient degradation of BTA. The influencing factors such as pH, dosage of ZFNPs, applied potential and initial concentration of BTA were systematically investigated. Under the optimum conditions, 91.2% of BTA was removed after 180 rain treatment.

Removal of ofloxacin antibiotic using heterogeneous Fenton process over modified alginate beads

The aim of this work is to study the heterogeneous oxidative degradation of ofloxacin antibiotic using a composite material prepared from sodium alginate and cyclohexane dinitrilo tetraacetic acid（CDTA）. The characterization tests indicated the successful incorporation of metal chelator and iron. It was also demonstrated that the synthesized beads are mesoporous. The influence of several experimental parameters（i.e.： H2O2 dose,working temperature, beads loading and initial drug concentration） on the process performances was evaluated. The reaction temperature significantly affects the drug conversion efficiency. It was also observed that the synthesized material was efficient toward the target antibiotic degradation in the presence of small quantities of hydrogen peroxide. Under optimum conditions（0.05 g of granules, initial drug concentration = 10 mg/L,25 μL of 10 mmol/L H2O2）, conducted in a batch reaction, 94% degradation of ofloxacin was reached. The results also indicate that the composite material showed a reasonable stability;a relatively low decrease of activity after four successive runs（only 9%） and a negligible iron leaching（0.8%） have been observed. The synthesized composite material offered interesting advantages in terms of simplicity, good stability, ease of recovery from the liquid medium after use and its efficiency in the presence of low quantities of oxidant. It constitutes a good candidate in the water treatment area.