Materials for Selective and Sustainable HydroCarbon Removal from Water

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We propose to develop and to investigate a new efficient class of non-toxic materials for waste water treatment from hydrocarbons (HCs). Based on the proposed design, these materials will be able adsorb very efficiently most kind of hydrocarbons with adjustable preference related to the chemical composition of the HC contaminants (e.g. alkanes, aromatic-, oxo- or sulfur functionalized or halogenated hydrocarbons). This key feature will be realized by special functional molecules, which form a self-assembled monolayer on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles. The adsorption of HCs is reversible and dedicated to non-covalent interactions (van-der Waals, H-bonding, dipole, -interaction) provided by the molecular design of the SAM molecules. Due to the magnetic core, the adsorbed HCs become removable from water by simply applying an external magnetic field. These properties potentially enable a closed-loop process with the unique advantage of full recovery of the HCs and the nanoparticles. We do not expect only results of enormous practical (economical, environmental) relevance, rather than a new insight in to core-shell nanoparticles with defined mixed shells (binary, ternary and quaternary composition). Our system provides a perfect test vehicle to study even orthogonal functionality of SAM molecules on one NP-surface as interaction surface to complex mixtures chemical compounds in aqueous matrix. We hope to generate new design strategies for inverted micelle systems which can be composed of several different molecules in a reliable way.