King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology

Hakimu Nsubuga

Chanbasha Basheer

Basheer Chanbasha

Copper-boron-ferrite (Cu—B—Fe) composites may be prepared and immobilized on graphite electrodes in a silica-based sol-gel, e.g., from rice husks. Different bimetallic loading ratios can produce fast in-situ electrogeneration of reactive oxygen species, HOand ·OH, e.g., via droplet flow-assisted heterogeneous electro-Fenton reactor system. Loading ratios of, e.g., 10 to 30 wt. % Feand 5 to 15% wt. Cu, can improve the catalytic activities towards pharmaceutical beta blockers (atenolol and propranolol) degradation in water. Degradation efficiencies of at least 99.9% for both propranolol and atenolol in hospital wastewater were demonstrated. Radicals of ·OH in degradation indicate a surface mechanism at inventive cathodes with correlated contributions of iron and copper. Copper and iron can be embedded in porous graphite electrode surface and catalyze the conversion of HOto ·OH to enhance the degradation. Inventive cathodes can be stable catalytically after 20 or more cycles under neutral and acidic conditions.

Electrochemical cell with coated sulfonated graphite cathode

Droplet flow-assisted electro-Fenton reactor system

Hydrogen peroxide generation system

Coated sulfonated graphite slab electrode

Copper-boron-ferrite (Cu&#x2014;B&#x2014;Fe) composites may be prepared and immobilized on graphite electrodes in a silica-based sol-gel, e.g., from rice husks. Different bimetallic loading ratios can produce fast in-situ electrogeneration of reactive oxygen species, HOand .OH, e.g., via droplet flow-assisted heterogeneous electro-Fenton reactor system. Loading ratios of, e.g., 10 to 30 wt. % Feand 5 to 15% wt. Cu, can improve the catalytic activities towards pharmaceutical beta blockers (atenolol and propranolol) degradation in water. Degradation efficiencies of at least 99.9% for both propranolol and atenolol in hospital wastewater were demonstrated. Radicals of .OH in degradation indicate a surface mechanism at inventive cathodes with correlated contributions of iron and copper. Copper and iron can be embedded in porous graphite electrode surface and catalyze the conversion of HOto .OH to enhance the degradation. Inventive cathodes can be stable catalytically after 20 or more cycles under neutral and acidic conditions.

Copper-boron-ferrite graphite silica-sol composites

A method of detecting and quantifying perchlorate contamination in samples, especially samples with complex background matrices such as food and produce with trace levels of perchlorate. A simple microwave assisted-electromembrane extraction provides simultaneous reduced extraction time, sample clean-up, high recovery and enrichment of perchlorate ions for detection and quantification by ion chromatography. Three parallel EME experiments connected to a single DC power supply improves the precision of the analyses. It also couples well with the multiple microwave digested samples and this reduces the sample preparation time and is hence suitable for routine environmental applications.

Method of detecting and quantifying perchlorate contamination

The micro-solid phase extraction of haloacetic acids is a procedure that extracts haloacetic acids from aqueous solution using iron-modified rice husk silica as the stationary phase or sorbent. Rice husks provide an excellent source of silica. The sorbent is prepared by incinerating the husks to produce a powder that is treated with 1.0 M nitric acid for 24 hours to produce rice husk silica. The silica is washed with base, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is added, and then titrated with a 10% Fesolution to pH 5, which forms a gel. The gel is aged, filtered, dried, and calcined to produce a nitrate-free iron-modified rice husk sorbent. The sorbent is then packaged in porous, heat-sealed polypropylene membrane envelopes and used for extraction of HAAs from water. The HAA analytes are desorbed by ultrasonication in methanol for analysis and quantification.

Growing community of inventors

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Hakimu Nsubuga