Novel lightweight and highly thermal insulative aerogel-doped poly(vinyl chloride)-coated fabric composites wereprepared on woven fabrics made of polyester fibres using knife coating method, and their performances were comparedwith neat composite. The composites were prepared by incorporating a commercial aerogel to a ‘green’ poly(vinylchloride) (PVC) plastisol. The effect of aerogel-content, thermal insulating property, thermal degradation, surface characteristics,tensile and physical properties of the composites were investigated. Results revealed that aerogel couldreduce thermal conductivity, density and hydrophilicity of the composites dramatically without significant decrease inother properties. Experimental results showed that thermal insulation properties were enhanced by 26% (from 205 to152 mW/m-K), density decreased by 17% (from 1.132 to 0.941 g/cm3) and hydrophobicity increased by 16.4% (from76.02 to 88.671.48) with respect to the unmodified coated fabric. Analyses proved that composite with 3% aerogel isthe lightest by weight, while 4% showed the highest thermal insulation. The results showed that 4% is the criticalpercentage, and preparation of composites with aerogel content higher than 4% has limitations with the given formulationdue to high viscosity of plastisol. The prepared composite has potential applications in many fields such asdevelopment of textile bioreactors for ethanol/biogas production from waste materials, temporary houses and tents,facade coverings, container linings and tarpaulins. The prepared composite can be considered ‘green’ due to usage of anon-phthalate environment-friendly plasticiser.

Novel all-polyamide composite (APC) has been developed to replace traditional coated fabrics with good interfacial adhesionand enhanced recyclability. The composite is fully recyclable since it contains no other materials except polyamide. APC was preparedby partially dissolving a polyamide fabric by treatment with a film-forming polyamide solution. The effect of the polyamidesolution concentration and gelling time on tensile and viscoelastic properties of APCs was investigated to explore the optimum processingparameters for balancing the good interfacial adhesion. The composite properties were studied by dynamic mechanical thermalanalysis (DMTA), tensile testing and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed a good adhesion between the coatingand the fabric. A new method was introduced to convert a low value added textile waste to a high value-added product. The compositeis tunable, in terms of having a dense or a porous top-layer depending on the end-use requirements.

All-polyamide composite coated-fabric (APCCF) was used as an alternative material for the construction of textile-bioreactors (TBRs), which are prepared as a replacement of the traditional stainless steel bioreactors (SSBRs) or concrete-based bioreactors. The material characteristics, as well as the fermentation process performance of the APCCF-TBR, was compared with a TBR made using the polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-coated polyester fabric (PVCCF). The TBRs were used for the anaerobic fermentation process using baker's yeast; and, for aerobic fermentation process using filamentous fungi, primarily by using waste streams from ethanol industries as the substrates. The results from the fermentation experiments were similar with those that were obtained from the cultivations that were carried out in conventional bioreactors. The techno-economic analysis conducted using a 5000 m3 APCCF-TBR for a typical fermentation facility would lead to a reduction of the annual production cost of the plant by 128,000,000 when compared to similar processes in SSBR. The comparative analyses (including mechanical and morphological studies, density measurements, thermal stability, ageing, and techno-economic analyses) revealed that the APCCF is a better candidate for the material of construction of the TBR. As the APCCF is a 100% recyclable single-polymer composite, which was prepared from Nylon 66 textile production-line waste, it could be considered as an environmentally sustainable product. 

Polyamides (PAs) are one of the most important engineering polymers; however, the difficulty in dissolving them hinders their applications. Formic acid (FA) is the most common solvent for PAs, but it has industrial limitations. In this contribution, we proposed a new solvent system for PAs by replacing a portion of the FA with urea and calcium chloride (FAUCa). Urea imparts the hydrogen bonding and calcium ion from the calcium chloride, as a Lewis acid was added to the system to compensate for the pH decrease due to the addition of urea. The results showed that the proposed solvent (FAUCa) could readily dissolve PAs, resulting in a less decrease in the mechanical properties during the dissolution. The composite prepared using the FAUCa has almost the same properties as the one prepared using the FA solution. The solution was applied on a polyamide 66 fabric to make an all-polyamide composite-coated fabric, which then was characterized. The FAUCa solution had a higher viscosity than the one prepared using the neat FA solvent, which can be an advantage in the applications which need higher viscosity like preparing the all-polyamide composite-coated fabric. A more viscous solution makes a denser coating which will increase the water /gas tightness. In conclusion, using the FAUCa solvent has two merits: (1) replacement of 40% of the FA with less harmful and environmentally friendly chemicals and (2) enabling for the preparation of more viscous solutions, which makes a denser coating.

Solvent selection is a crucial step in all solvent-involved processes. Using the Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs)could provide a solvent/solvent-mixture, but there are two main challenges: 1) What solvents should be selected? 2)From each solvent, how much should be added to the mixture? There is no straightforward way to answer the twochallenging questions. This contribution proposes a computer-aided method for selecting solvents (answer to thequestion 1) and finding the adequate amount of each solvent (answer to the question 2) to form a mixture of 2, 3 or4 solvents to dissolve a solute with known HSPs or to replace a solvent. To achieve this, a sophisticated computersoftware package was developed to find the optimized mixture using the mathematical Simplex algorithm based onHSPs values from a database of 234 solvents. To get a list of solvent-mixtures, polyamide66 was tested using itsHSPs. This technique reduces the laboratory effort required in selecting and screening solvent blends while allowinga large number of candidate solvents to be considered for inclusion in a blend. The outcome of this paper significantlydiminished the time of solvent development experimentation by decreasing the possible/necessary trials. Thus, themost suitable solvent/solvent-substitution can be found by the least possible effort; hence, it will save time and costof all solvent-involved processes in the fields of chemistry, polymer and coating industries, chemical engineering, etc.

The solvent finding step has always been a time-consuming job in chemical-involved processes. The source of difficulty mainly comes from the trial-and-errors, as a repetitive process of chosing solvents and mixing them in different proportions. Computers are good at doing repetitive processes; however, they can only deal with numerical values, rather than qulitative scales. Numerification of qualitative parameters (like solubility) has already been introduced. The most recent one is the Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs). Using the HSPs could provide a solvent or solvent-mixture. In our previous study, we introduced a computer-aided model and a software to find a solvent mixture. In this study, we have used the computer-aided solvent selection model to find some solvent mixtures for polyamide 11, a biobased polymer which has attracted enormous attention recently. Using this numerical model significantly diminished the time of solvent development experimentation by decreasing the possible/necessary trials.