Polyacllyonitrile Formal Report

In this local experiment, the goal was to use a polyacrylonitrile (PAN, (C3H3N)n) in addition to a chalcogel. This chalcogel is efficient at adsorbing I2 gas. Although just the chalcogel itself isn’t mechanically stable especially if it is to be used in the field for actual radioactive iodine capture. By creating a hybrid substance with the PAN and the chalcogel in a mixture, the theory is that they can create a mechanically stable efficient iodine capture method. This experiment did not study the best ratio; therefore it may be further studied and experimented with in order to find the best Mcg/MPAN mixture for maximum sorbent loading before the pore structure of the binder collapses. They looked at iodine capture under dynamic conditions, which measured the iodine
They then examined these samples through the SEM, XRD, and TGA to learn more about the properties and differences. The SnSp (powdered) species came from the SnSg (granular) synthesis during solvent exchange and the CO2 supercritical drying process. They found that the PAN hybrid was very much more mechanically stable than pure chalcogel, even though the as-made chalcogels adsorbed iodine more quickly, and more effectively. The sorbents that contained more Sn2 S3 took in more iodine than others with a lower concentration of this. This is because PAN’s contribution to iodine capture is very low, so it makes sense that if there is more PAN, you will have a more stable structure but less effective iodine capture. They also discovered that less time was needed to achieve maximum adsorption with SnS50+I than the SnSg+I and SnSp+I. The reason for this was not discovered. Although another worthy note from this experiment is that originally the PAN was dissolved in DMSO before it was added to the chalcogel. This actually improved the final surface area of the resulting hybrid sorbent. This leaves this notion also up for further investigation and