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Effect of ultrasound irradiation on the growth of colloidal particles in resorcinol–formaldehyde solutions as precursors to porous adsorbents

  • Polymers & biopolymers
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Abstract

Resorcinol–formaldehyde (RF) aqueous solutions are common precursors to porous adsorbents, which are composed of three-dimensionally interconnected colloidal particles formed during sol–gel polycondensation of the RF solution. We studied the effects of ultrasound irradiation on the growth of colloidal particles in RF solutions by tracing the transient changes in the size distributions of the colloidal particles with an autocorrelation function, which we measured with dynamic light scattering. An evaluation of the first moment, corresponding to average particle size of the size distributions, revealed that ultrasound irradiation enhanced the growth of the colloidal particles in the solution. The enhancement due to ultrasound irradiation was greatest at an intensity of 21.2 W/cm2. We compared the effects of different ultrasound irradiation intensities on the porous structures formed between the interconnected colloidal particles during sol–gel polycondensation. For this, we prepared an RF cryogel from the RF solution by freeze-drying and confirmed that ultrasound irradiation decreased its porosity and pore volume. Furthermore, the sol–gel phase transition time was accelerated, depending on the ultrasound intensity. The ultrasound irradiation probably facilitated the formation of a more compact network structure. Finally, a batch adsorption experiment employing an RF hydrogel pellet in an aqueous cesium chloride solution confirmed that the adsorbed amount of cesium cations onto an RF hydrogel was almost unchanged by preparation with ultrasound irradiation. The proposed method is a potential alternative for RF hydrogel network structure densification, greatly reducing consumption of Na2CO3, a typical catalyst for the sol–gel polycondensation of an RF solution.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Number: 21K04755). The authors thank M. Chibana for her technical assistance in the DLS measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Hyogo, Himeji, Hyogo, 671-2280, Japan

    Takuji Yamamoto, Shogo Taguchi, Hiroshi Satone & Kouji Maeda

  2. Laboratoire d’Automatique, de Génie des Procédés et de Génie Pharmaceutique (LAGEPP), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622, Villeurbanne, France

    Mélaz Tayakout-Fayolle & Barbara Browning

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  1. Takuji Yamamoto
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  2. Mélaz Tayakout-Fayolle
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  3. Barbara Browning
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  4. Shogo Taguchi
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  5. Hiroshi Satone
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  6. Kouji Maeda
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Contributions

TY designed the study, the main conceptual ideas, and prepared the original draft. MT-F worked on the investigation and establishment of numerical methods for data analysis. BB aided in the interpretation of the analyzed data and editing the manuscript. ST and HS collected the experimental data of dynamic light scattering and nitrogen gas adsorption experiments. KM supervised the project. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Takuji Yamamoto.

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Yamamoto, T., Tayakout-Fayolle, M., Browning, B. et al. Effect of ultrasound irradiation on the growth of colloidal particles in resorcinol–formaldehyde solutions as precursors to porous adsorbents. J Mater Sci 59, 3168–3176 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-024-09390-1

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