A hybrid material comprising modified porous silica and biologically active agents is disclosed. In particular, the invention discloses the design and development of amorphous silica to stabilize biologically active microorganisms and their derived enzymes, for bioremediation of hazardous substances including polar or non-polar chemicals, biological hazardous waste, radioactive hazardous waste, with potential application in the field of environmental remediation.

A material for reverse phase chromatography comprises surface modifying apolar and charged groups bound to a solid support, said charged groups being present in amounts of about 0.25 to about 22% of the surface modifying groups, or in amounts of about 0.01 mol/m.sup.2 to 0.8 mol/m.sup.2 referred to the surface of the solid support for a material with a total amount of surface modifying groups of 3.6 mol/m.sup.2. Such material and suitable purification conditions for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) like peptides can be evaluated by (a) determining the isoelectric point (pI) of the API of interest, (b) choosing a pH in a range where the solid phase material is stable, (c) determining the difference pIpH and (d) if the difference pIpH is positive, choosing an anion exchange (AIEX) material, or if the difference pIpH is negative, choosing an cation exchange (CIEX) material.

Disclosed in certain embodiments are carbon dioxide sorbents that include porous particles impregnated with an amine compound.

A method for surface treatment of acrylate-based superabsorbents may include preparing a treatment solution including water, an organic solvent, and a silane compound; applying the treatment solution to a plurality of acrylate-based superabsorbents to form a mixture; and fabricating modified acrylate-based superabsorbents by subjecting the mixture to heating or microwave irradiation.

A carrier for blood component adsorption enables selective and efficient adsorption removal of granulocytes and monocytes and, at the same time, enables adsorption removal of inflammatory cytokines. The carrier for blood component adsorption includes a water-insoluble carrier having a surface to which a functional group(s) containing a silyl group and an amino group is/are introduced.

Thermoplastic compositions having reduced odor are described. A thermoplastic composition can include a thermoplastic polymer and a dual active functionalized silica (e.g., an amine-functionalized silica having a specific surface area of less than 450 m2/g and a nitrogen content of at least 1.2 wt. %). Such a thermoplastic composition has decreased odor-active volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions when compared with the same thermoplastic composition that does not include the dual active functionalized silica.

An adsorbent for halogenated anaesthetics includes: an inorganic material; and an organic material providing a framework for the inorganic material. The inorganic material may be chromium and the organic material may be terephthalic acid. The adsorbent may be formed or configured such that the adsorbent includes coordinatively unsaturated sites or such that the inorganic material may form octahedral structures. The adsorbent is formed or configured to be substantially regenerated at approximately room temperature and to provide selectivity for sevofluorane in water vapour of approximately 1.0. A method of producing an adsorbent includes: selecting an appropriate chemical containing an inorganic material; selecting an organic material to provide a framework for the inorganic material; dissolving the base chemical in water; mixing the organic material with the dissolved base chemical; heating the mixture; filtering the mixture to remove excess organic material; and drying the filtrate.

The present invention provides novel chromatographic materials, e.g., for chromatographic separations, processes for their preparation and separations devices containing the chromatographic materials. The preparation of the inorganic/organic hybrid materials of the invention wherein a surrounding material is condensed on a superficially porous hybrid core material will allow for families of different hybrid packing materials to be prepared from a single core hybrid material. Differences in hydrophobicity, ion-exchange capacity, chemical stability, surface charge or silanol activity of the surrounding material may be used for unique chromatographic separations of small molecules, carbohydrates, antibodies, whole proteins, peptides, and/or DNA.

Amine groups can be introduced in porous materials by a direct (one pot) or post-synthetic modification (PSM) process on aldehyde groups, and the resulting porous materials have increased gas affinity.

The invention relates to an optical waveguide having a Fibre Bragg Grating, which waveguide is provided with a coating having a nanoporous sensor material, the sensor unit further having an optical detection unit for detecting a change in an optical property of the waveguide, wherein the grating is present in the core of the waveguide and the coating at least substantially surrounds the grating. The coating is expandable or shrinkable under the influence of the chemical substance, thereby causing a change in axial strain in the grating when the sensor material is exposed to the chemical substance, which change is detectible by a optical detection unit. The invention further relates to an optical sensor system for measuring a chemical substance, the sensor system having a waveguide according to the invention