Superhydrophobic cotton for addressing fatbergs through oily wastewater treatment.

Fats, oils and grease (FOGs) deposits in sewers have recently become a significant problem, causing financial strain on water companies, damaging sewer lines, and exposing the environment to dirty water through sanitary sewer overflows. Despite the proactive use of grease traps/interceptors for physical oil-water separation, the issue of FOG deposits persists. This study proposes the use of adsorption-based oil-water separation, employing superhydrophobic cotton, as a new alternative method for removing FOGs. Durable superhydrophobic cotton was successfully prepared using a simple two-step sol-gel method, with octadecyltrimethoxysilane (ODTMS) as a modifying silane. The resulting cotton samples demonstrated remarkable superhydrophobicity, evidenced by water contact angle (WCA) above 154°. Additionally, it exhibited exceptional durability and stability when exposed to hot water, harsh acidic and alkaline solutions, as well as during a laundry test. Moreover, the cotton displayed excellent oil-water separation efficiency (> 98 %) and maintained consistent performance throughout 20 reuse cycles, highlighting its high reusability. This approach holds the potential to address the prevailing FOG deposit issues and contribute to more efficient and sustainable wastewater management practices.

Process-Induced Crystal Surface Anisotropy and the Impact on the Powder Properties of Odanacatib.

Crystalline active pharmaceutical ingredients with comparable size and surface area can demonstrate surface anisotropy induced during crystallization or downstream unit operations such as milling. To the extent that varying surface properties impacts bulk powder properties, the final drug product performance such as stability, dissolution rates, flowability, and dispersibility can be predicted by understanding surface properties such as surface chemistry, energetics, and wettability. Here, we investigate the surface properties of different batches of Odanacatib prepared through either jet milling or fast precipitation from various solvent systems, all of which meet the particle size specification established to ensure equivalent biopharmaceutical performance. This work highlights the use of orthogonal surface techniques such as Inverse Gas Chromatography (IGC), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, contact angle, and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) to demonstrate the effect of processing history on particle surface properties to explain differences in bulk powder properties.