The purpose of this project is to investigate the swelling ratio exhibited due to photothermal effects of double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels synthesized with carbon black as a light-sensitive chromophore. Optimal carbon black dispersion was achieved in solutions through sonication, using V9A32 carbon black, where dynamic light scattering recorded particle diameters in the range of 195.0-375.8 nanometers for water/carbon black mixtures, 242.4-262.6 nanometers for monomer/carbon black mixtures without initiator, and 1109.3-1783.9 nanometers for monomer/carbon black mixtures including initiator. The double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels with carbon black yielded weight increases of 0.126% and 6.043%, respectively, after 2 minutes and 10 minutes of being exposed to a light stimulus; compared to previous work which showed a double network polyacrylamide poly(acrylic acid) hydrogel with chlorophyllin yielded weight increases of 18.3% and 20.8%, respectively, after 2 minutes and 10 minutes of being exposed to a light stimulus, the carbon black resulted in a less robust response. Future work for application of the light-responsive hydrogels includes the development of a screen covering that will be made of the hydrogels. This covering is intended for use on LED screen displays, where a light change will result in a protrusion from the screen. The purpose behind this application is that technology users who are visually impaired can still determine what their LED device is trying to communicate with them.

Recently, a number of publications have suggested that ionic liquids (ILs) can absorb solid particles. This development may have implications in fields like oil sand processing, oil spill beach cleanup, and water treatment. In this Honors Thesis, computational investigation of this phenomenon is provided via molecular dynamics simulations. Two particle surface chemistries were investigated: (1) hydrocarbon-saturated and (2) silanol-saturated, representing hydrophobic and hydrophilic particles, respectively. Employing 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([BMIM]-[PF6]) as a model IL, these nanoparticles were allowed to equilibrate at the IL/water and IL/hexane interfaces to observe the interfacial self-assembled structures. At the IL/water interface, the hydrocarbon-based nanoparticles were nearly completely absorbed by the IL, while the silica nanoparticles maintained equal volume in both phases. At the IL/hexane interface, the hydrocarbon nanoparticles maintained minimal interactions with the IL, whereas the silica nanoparticles were nearly completely absorbed by it. Studies of these two types of nanoparticles immersed in the bulk IL indicate that the surface chemistry has a great effect on the corresponding IL liquid structure. These effects include layering of the ions, hydrogen bonding, and irreversible absorption of some ions to the silica nanoparticle surface. These effects are quantified with respect to each nanoparticle. The results suggest that ILs likely exhibit this absorption capability because they can form solvation layers with reduced dynamics around the nanoparticles.

This project is part of a larger project involving making membranes for the separation of potable water from urine solutions for applications in space travel. This project deals specifically with testing LTA nanozeolites that will be used in the membrane under a variety of acidic conditions, specifically in solutions of sulfuric acid, chromium trioxide, and potassium phosphate of pHs ranging from .5 to 5, in order to investigate the effects of pH, acid type, and time. They were analyzed using SEM, FTIR, and XRD, in order to analyze how much the zeolite was degraded under the conditions of each solution. It was determined that, for high pH values (4-5), potassium phosphate had the strongest effect, as it degraded the zeolite to the point of destroying the crystal structure completely. Because of the solubility limit of potassium phosphate in water, it could not be analyzed at low pH, so only sulfuric acid and chromium trioxide were analyzed at low pH (.5-3). They both had severe effects, sulfuric acid being slightly more severe, with both of them completely dissolving the zeolite at pH values of 1 and lower. Decreasing pH increased degradation for all of the acids, with pH values above 2 for sulfuric acid and chromium trioxide showing only minor degradation, and pH 5 potassium phosphate showing only minor degradation.

"The Wedding Dress" is a creative project investigating the history of wedding dress design that led to the design and construction of a wedding dress with historical inspiration. The project details the process of creating the wedding dress, in addition to the historical study of wedding dresses, and the designer/author's inspiration.

Asymmetric polystyrene-gold composite particles are successfully synthesized alongside core-shell composite particles via a one-step Pickering emulsion polymerization method. Unlike core-shell particles which form in the droplet phase of a stabilized Pickering emulsion, asymmetric particles form via a seeded growth mechanism. These composite particles act as catalysts with higher recyclability than pure gold nanoparticles due to reduced agglomeration. With the addition of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAM) monomers, temperature-responsive asymmetric and core-shell polystyrene/poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-gold composite particles are also synthesized via Pickering emulsion polymerization. The asymmetric particles have a greater thermo-responsiveness than the core-shell particles due to the increased presence of NIPAAM monomers in the seeded-growth formation. Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)-containing asymmetric particles have tunable rheological and optical properties due to their significant size decrease above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST).

The two central goals of this project were 1) to develop a testing method utilizing coatings on ultra-thin stainless steel to measure the thermal conductivity (k) of battery electrode materials and composites, and 2) to measure and compare the thermal conductivities of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, "LFP") in industry-standard graphite/LFP mixtures as well as graphene/LFP mixtures and a synthesized graphene/LFP nanocomposite. Graphene synthesis was attempted before purchasing graphene materials, and further exploration of graphene synthesis is recommended due to limitations in purchased product quality. While it was determined after extensive experimentation that the graphene/LFP nanocomposite could not be successfully synthesized according to current literature information, a mixed composite of graphene/LFP was successfully tested and found to have k = 0.23 W/m*K. This result provides a starting point for further thermal testing method development and k optimization in Li-ion battery electrode nanocomposites.

Iodide-based ionic liquids have been widely employed as sources of iodide in electrolytes for applications utilizing the triiodide/iodide redox couple. While adding a low-viscosity solvent such as water to ionic liquids can greatly enhance their usefulness, mixtures of highly viscous iodide-containing ILs with water have never been studied. Thus, this paper investigates, for the first time, mixtures of water and the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide ([BMIM][I]) through a combined experimental and molecular dynamics study. The density, melting point, viscosity and conductivity of these mixtures were measured experimentally. The composition region below 50% water by mole was found to be dramatically different from the region above 50% water, with trends in density and melting point differing before and after that point. Water was found to have a profound effect on viscosity and conductivity of the IL, and the effect of hydrogen bonding was discussed. Molecular dynamics simulations representing the same mixture compositions were performed. Molecular ordering was observed, as were changes in this ordering corresponding to water content. Molecular ordering was related to the experimentally measured mixture properties, providing a possible explanation for the two distinct composition regions identified by experiment.

Calcium hydroxide carbonation processes were studied to investigate the potential for abiotic soil improvement. Different mixtures of common soil constituents such as sand, clay, and granite were mixed with a calcium hydroxide slurry and carbonated at approximately 860 psi. While the carbonation was successful and calcite formation was strong on sample exteriors, a 4 mm passivating boundary layer effect was observed, impeding the carbonation process at the center. XRD analysis was used to characterize the extent of carbonation, indicating extremely poor carbonation and therefore CO2 penetration inside the visible boundary. The depth of the passivating layer was found to be independent of both time and choice of aggregate. Less than adequate strength was developed in carbonated trials due to formation of small, weakly-connected crystals, shown with SEM analysis. Additional research, especially in situ analysis with thermogravimetric analysis would be useful to determine the causation of poor carbonation performance. This technology has great potential to substitute for certain Portland cement applications if these issues can be addressed.

In order to better understand the physical properties of polyethylene, an extremely common plastic used mostly in packaging, many scientists and engineers use olecular dynamics. To reduce the computational expense associated with traditional atomistic molecular dynamics, coarse-grained molecular dynamics is often used. Coarse-grained molecular dynamics groups multiple atoms into single beads, reducing the number of degrees of freedom in a system and eliminating smaller atoms with faster kinematics. However, even coarse-grained methods have their limitations, one of which is timestep duration, which is limited by the maximum vibrational frequency in the coarse-grained system. To study this limitation, a coarse-grained model of polyethylene was created such that every C 2 H 4 unit was replaced with a bead. Coarse-grained potentials for bond-stretching, bond-bending, and non-bonded interaction were generated using the iterative Boltzmann inversion method, which matches coarse-grained distribution functions to atomistic distribution functions. After the creation of the model, the coarse-grained potentials were rescaled by a constant so that they were less stiff, decreasing the maximum vibrational frequency of the system. It is found that by diminishing the bond-stretching potential to 6.25% of its original value, the maximum stable timestep can be increased 85% over that of the unmodified potential functions. The results of this work suggest that it may be possible to simulate lengthy processes, such as the crystallization of polyethylene, in less time with adjusted coarse-grained potentials. Additionally, the large discrepancies in the speed of bond-stretching, bond-bending, and non- bonded interaction dynamics suggest that a multi-timestep method may be worth investigating in future work.

Poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) with an intrinsically conducting pyrrole polymer (ICP) backbone were synthesized and utilized as novel dispersants of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in various polar and nonpolar solvents. This is due to their highly tunable nature, in which the anions can be easily exchanged to form PILs of varying polarity but with the same polycation. These CNT dispersions were exceedingly stable over many months, and with the addition of hexane, Pickering emulsions with the PIL-stabilized CNTs at the droplet interfaces were formed. Depending on the hydrophobicity of the PIL, hexane-in-water and hexane-in-acetonitrile emulsions were formed, the latter marking the first non-aqueous stabilized-CNT emulsions and corresponding CNT-in-acetonitrile dispersion, further advancing the processability of CNTs. The PIL-stabilized CNT Pickering emulsion droplets generated hollow conductive particles by subsequent drying of the emulsions. With the emulsion templating, the hollow shells can be used as a payload carrier, depending on the solubility of the payload in the droplet phase of the emulsion. This was demonstrated with silicon nanoparticles, which have limited solubility in aqueous environments, but great scientific interest due to their potential electrochemical applications. Overall, this work explored a new class of efficient PIL-ICP hybrid stabilizers with tunable hydrophobicity, offering extended stability of carbon nanotube dispersions with novel applications in hollow particle formation via Pickering emulsion templating and in placing payloads into the shells.