Particulate Sorbents and Method of Preparation – IP 1748

Traditionally, a large numberof particulate matters are used individually or in different combination asadsorbents in water filtration system, air pollutant trapping systems, sewagetreatments plants, to name a few. Many of these particulate matters possessextremely high surface area, but disadvantageously demonstrate a strongtendency to form agglomeration, therefore excluding a large portion of theseparticles’ available surface area to analytes. FIU inventors have developed carbonaceous andnon-carbonaceous particulate matters encapsulated in sol-gel sorbent matrices,and methods of synthesizing them. The addition of particulate matters in thesol solution during sol-gel synthesis results in a sol-gel composite sorbentsystem with homogeneously trapped particulate matters in a permeable cage-likearchitecture. Due to the inherently porous and open architecture of a sol-gelsilica network, encapsulated particulate matters maintain high surface area andfreely accessible interaction sites. The unique combination of the particulatesinto sol-gel matrix synergistically augments the material properties of the compositematerial system to offer unique selectivity and affinity towards most of thetarget analytes. These analytes include emerging pollutants, EPA prioritypollutants, heavy metals ionic and ionizable compounds, endocrine disruptingchemicals, and other pollutants and unwanted entities in water and air. Anne Laure Schmitt Olivier aschmitt@fiu.edu 305-348-5948