The invention relates to a method for producing an aerogel material with a porosity of at least 0.55 and an average pore size of 10 nm to 500 nm, having the following steps: a) preparing and optionally activating a sol; b) filling the sol into a casting mold (10); c) gelling the sol, whereby a gel is produced, and subsequently aging the gel; at least one of the following steps d) and e), d) substituting the pore liquid with a solvent; e) chemically modifying the aged and optionally solvent-substituted gel (6) using a reaction agent; followed by f) drying the gel, whereby the aerogel material is formed. The casting mold used in step b) is provided with a plurality of channel-forming elements (2) which are designed such that the sol filled into the casting mold lies overall at a maximum distance X from a channel-forming element over a specified minimum length L defined in the channel direction of the elements, with the proviso that X<15 mm and L/X>3.

Methods of making permeable aerogels (100) can include providing a sol mixture (110) comprising an organic scaffold, an inorganic aerogel precursor, and a first solvent. The organic scaffold can be insoluble in the first solvent. The sol mixture can react to form a gel (120) such that an interconnected channel network is formed which is at least partially defined by the organic scaffold. The first solvent in the gel can be exchanged (130) with a second solvent. The second solvent can dissolve the organic scaffold to expose the interconnected channel network. The gel can be dried (140) to form the permeable aerogel.

Urea and amine comprising sol-gel hybrid coatings have been developed for numerous applications, including capillary microextraction-high performance liquid chromatographic analysis from aqueous samples. A fused silica capillary may be coated from the inside with surface bonded coating material and may be created by in-situ sol-gel reaction(s). Urea-functionalized coatings can be immobilized on the inner surface of a capillary by condensing silanol groups of capillary and sol-solution. Urea functionalized, sol-gel coated capillaries may be installed, e.g., in HPLC manual injection ports, and optionally pre-concentrated analytes including phenols, ketones, aldehydes, and/or polyaromatic hydrocarbons, from highly polar to non-polar, maybe analyzed by online extraction and high-performance liquid chromatographic. Such coatings may achieve sensitivities with lower detection limits (S/N=3) of 0.10 ng/mL to 14.29 ng/mL, with reproducibilities of <12.0% RSD (n=3), or <10.0% RSD (n=3) by exchanging the capillary of the same size.

A method for treating biomass to manufacture biomass beads adapted to an implementation in a gasification method, the method comprising the following steps: a) providing a biomass powder, for example a wood bark powder, the particle size of the biomass powder preferably being less than 200 μm, b) providing an alginate solution comprising water and alginate, for example potassium alginate or sodium alginate, c) adding the biomass powder to the alginate solution and mixing, whereby a colloidal suspension is formed, d) dropwise adding the colloidal suspension to an ionotropic coagulation bath comprising multivalent ions, whereby biomass beads are formed.

This disclosure describes particles and techniques for storing oligonucleotides that provide stable, long-term protection yet are also compostable. A core is coated with a layer of oligonucleotides and encapsulated under an outer layer of non-porous, hydrolyzed organosilicon disulfide. The hydrolyzed organosilicon disulfide protects the oligonucleotides from oxidative and thermal damage under typical storage conditions. One suitable organosilicon disulfide is bis(3-triethoxysilylpropyl) disulfide (BTSPD). The oligonucleotides may be retrieved by contacting the particles with a reducing agent that degrades the disulfide bonds in the outer layer. The disulfide bonds enable removal of the protective encapsulation without the use of dangerous chemicals such as hydrogen fluoride. Instead of retrieving the oligonucleotides, the particles may be disposed of in a composting environment. In an implementation, the oligonucleotides are artificially synthesized and encode digital information.

A method for producing a quantum dot including crystalline nanoparticle fluorescent material, wherein, using a first precursor solution and a second precursor solution containing different elements each other, the second precursor solution is sprayed as an aerosol on the heated first precursor solution, or both the first precursor solution and the second precursor solution are sprayed on a heated solvent as aerosols, and the first precursor solution and the second precursor solution are reacted with each other to synthesize a core particle containing the different elements. The method for producing quantum dots, can suppress the non-uniformity of the particle size of the quantum dots and accompany increase in the distribution of emission wavelengths in large scale synthesis.

Provided is a method for the preparation of a porous hollow shell WO.sub.3/WS.sub.2 nanomaterial, comprising: (1) adding a hexavalent tungsten salt to a sol A comprising mesocarbon microbeads, and stirring to obtain a sol B; (2) drying and grinding the sol B, and then heating a resulting powder at 200-500° C. for 0.5-2 hours to obtain a porous hollow shell WO.sub.3 nanocrystalline material; (3) placing the porous hollow shell WO.sub.3 nanocrystalline material obtained by Step 2 and a sulfur powder separately in a vacuum furnace, controlling such that a degree of vacuum is −0.01 to −0.1 MPa and a temperature is 200-500° C., and reacting for 0.5-3 hours to obtain a WO.sub.3/WS.sub.2 porous hollow shell nanocrystalline material. Also provided is a porous hollow shell WO.sub.3/WS.sub.2 nanocrystalline material obtained by the method.

A method of producing a product, for example a stretch blow moulded container having a metallic or pearlescent appearance, comprises selecting a mass, for example a container preform, comprising a thermoplastic polymer which incorporates a carrier polymer and stretching the thermoplastic polymer during production of said product, for example from said mass. Said carrier polymer is suitably polydimethylsiloxane and the mass may be made in a process which comprises contacting a thermoplastic polymer with a liquid formulation comprising carrier polymer and colourant.

The present invention relates to a method for preparing an aqueous or hydro-alcoholic colloidal solution of metal chalcogenide amorphous nanoparticles notably of the Cu.sub.2ZnSnS.sub.4 (CZTS) type and to the obtained colloidal solution. The present invention also relates to a method for manufacturing a film of large-grain crystallized semi-conducting metal chalcogenide film notably of CZTS obtained from an aqueous or hydro-alcoholic colloidal solution according to the invention, said film being useful as an absorption layer deposited on a substrate applied in a solid photovoltaic device.

Provided is an inorganic oxide dispersion (sol) in which inorganic oxide particles are dispersed in silicone oil.