The Effect of Light Intensity, Temperature, and Oxygen Pressure on the Photo-Oxidation Rate of Bare PbS Quantum Dots.

The oxidation speed of PbS quantum dots has been a subject of controversy for some time. In this study, we reveal the precise functional form of the oxidation rate constant for bare quantum dots through analysis of their photoluminescence as a function of temperature, oxygen pressure, and excitation-laser intensity. The combined effect of these factors results in a reduced energy barrier that allows the oxidation to proceed at a high rate. Each absorbed photon is found to have a 10-8 probability of oxidizing a PbS atomic pair. This highlights the importance of photo-excitation on the speed of the oxidation process, even at low illumination conditions. The procedure used here may set up a quantitative standard useful for characterizing the stability of quantum dots coated with ligands/linkers, and to compare different protection schemes in a fair quantitative way.

Tratamento de águas contaminadas por diesel/biodiesel utilizando processo Fenton / Treatment of water contaminated by diesel/biodiesel using Fenton process

A contaminação de águas por misturas diesel/biodiesel pode causar grandes impactos ambientais, relacionados à presença de compostos orgânicos recalcitrantes e tóxicos, inviabilizando o uso de processos biológicos de tratamento. A avaliação da biodegradabilidade, nas proporções B0, B25, B50, B75 e B100 (os números especificam o percentual em massa de biodiesel na mistura), indicou que a adição de biodiesel em teores acima de 50% aumenta a biodegradabilidade, alcançando 60 e 80% para B50 e B75, respectivamente. Na aplicação do processo Fenton, a remoção da matéria orgânica foi superior a 80% em todas as misturas, exceto para B0, que apresentou remoção máxima de 50%. A oxidação por Fenton se ajustou a um modelo cinético de pseudo-segunda ordem em relação à concentração de matéria orgânica, e resultou em aumento da biodegradabilidade de até 150%.

Waters contaminated with diesel/biodiesel and their blends can cause major environmental impacts, due to the presence of toxic and recalcitrant organic compounds, which invalidate the use of biological treatment processes. Evaluation of biodegradability of the blends B0, B25, B50, B75 and B100 (the numbers specify the mass percentage of biodiesel in the blend) indicated that the addition of biodiesel at concentrations above 50% increased biodegradation, reaching 60 and 80% for B50 and B75, respectively. When the Fenton process was used, removal of organic matter was greater than 80 % in all blends, except for B0, which showed maximum removal of 60%. Oxidation by Fenton was fitted with a pseudo-second order kinetic model in relation to the concentration of organic matter and resulted in increased biodegradation of up to 150%.