2019-06, Corvini, Nora, Corvini, Philippe, Shahgaldian, Patrick, El Idrissi, Mohamed, Dimitriadou, Eleni

Facile chemical modification of mesoporous silica particles allows the production of gated reservoir systems capable of hydrophobicity-triggered release. Applied to the delivery of nutrients specifically to an oil phase, the systems developed have been shown to reliably assist the bacterial degradation of hydrocarbons. The gated system developed, made of C18 hydrocarbon chains, is demonstrated to be in a closed collapsed state in an aqueous environment, yet opens up through solvation by lipophilic alkanes and releases its content on contact with the oil phase.

2017-06, El Idrissi, Mohamed, Molina Bacca, Aurora E., Frascari, Dario, Corvini, Philippe, Shahgaldian, Patrick

While the specific recovery of valuable chemicals from waste streams represents an environmentally-friendly and potentially economically-relevant alternative to synthetic chemical productions, it remains a largely unmet challenge. This is partially explained by the complexity of designing sorption materials able to target one specific compound and able to function in complex matrices. In this work, a series of cyclodextrin-based polymers (CDPs) were designed to selectively extract phenolic compounds from a complex organic matrix that is olive oil mill wastewater (OMW). In order to endow these polymers with selective adsorption properties, several monomers and cross-linkers were screened and selected. The adsorption properties of the CDPs produced were first tested with selected phenolic compounds commonly found in OMW, namely syringic acid, p-coumaric acid, tyrosol and caffeic acid. The selected CDPs were subsequently tested for their ability to adsorb phenolic compounds directly from OMW, which is known to possess a high and complex organic content. It was demonstrated through high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy analyses that efficient removal of phenolic compounds from OMW could be achieved but also that two compounds, namely tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol, could be selectively extracted from OMW.

2017, El Idrissi, Mohamed, Teat, Simon J., Corvini, Philippe, Paterson, Martin J., Dalgarno, Scott J., Shahgaldian, Patrick

The accurate molecular design of organic building blocks is of great importance for the creation of large supramolecular entities with precise dimensional organisation. Herein we report on the design of a new pyrene derivative that yields, through a hierarchical self-assembly process and in the absence of template, stable and well defined nanorods. X-ray diffraction studies allowed elucidation of the three dimensional packing of this pyrene derivative within the self-assembled nanorods.