DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16816419
title: Porous Carriers

description: ____________________Dataset for Porous Carriers ____________________
* Last updated: 2025-08-11

* DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16816419



______Contact______
* Hynek Beneš
* benesh@imc.cas.cz
* +420 229 809 313
* ORCID: 0000-0002-6861-1997
* Dept. of Polymer Processing, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences
* Heyrovského nám. 2, 162 00, Prague 6, Czech Republic


______Licence______
Research data described in this ReadMe file and in this metadata deposit are confidential given their nature revealing trade secrets and infringing intellectual property (IP) rights of the parties. Anonymized data can be provided upon request by the above-described contact person. With respect to IP protection and protection of commercial interests, nondisclosure agreements will be required.


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______About the dataset______
The dataset relates to preparation of a porous activated sludge biomass carrier for biological wastewater treatment, which is based on hydrolytically degradable polyurethane foam.


______Methods of data collection______
**Sample preparation**

*Synthesis of polyols: Polyols were prepared by polycondensation of glycols and dicarboxylic acids. The calculated amount of acid was added to a three-necked glass flask and the flask was heated to elevated temperature with constant stirring for about 24 hours. The course of polymerization was controlled by determining the acid number and hydroxyl numbers. 

*Preparation of polyurethane foams: The mixture of polyol, catalysts, water and surfactant was homogenized in a plastic crucible for 5 min with a shaft stirrer (500 rpm). The appropriate isocyanate was then rapidly added to the mixture and the mixture was rapidly and intensively homogenized (2000 rpm, 60 s). The reaction mixture was then either left in the crucible or poured into an open plastic mold and freely foamed at 25 °C and subsequently cured for 24 h at 55 °C.


**Analytical methods**
*Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) measurements were performed on a modular GPC system equipped with an RI (RIDK-102, Laboratorní přístroje Praha, CZ) and a UV-vis photometric (LCD 2084, Ecom s.r.o., CZ) detector, with two PLgel 1000Å and 50Å columns (Polymer Laboratories, UK), mobile phase: tetrahydrofuran, 1ml.min-1. 

*Determination of hydroxyl number of the synthesized polyols was determined by the titration acetylation method according to ISO 2554-1974.

*Determination of acid number: The determination of acid number was carried out according to ASTM D 4662-93.

*The bulk density was determined according to ČSN EN ISO 845 (2010).

*The open cell content was determined pycnometrically according to ASTM D6226-21.

*The average cell size was determined from optical micrographs of the foams taken with a digital microscope camera 
PRO (Toolcraft) and evaluated using ImageJ 1.52r software by counting at least 100 cells.

*The water absorption was determined according to ISO 2896:2001 by immersing the sample in distilled water for 24 hours.

*FT-IR spectra were measured by the ATR-FTIR method on a Spectrum 100 FT-IR spectrometer (Perkin-Elmer, USA) in the wavenumber range of 650–4000 cm-1 with a spectral resolution of 4 cm-1 as an average of 16 scans for each sample. 

*Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Micrographs of PU foams were taken on a Vega Plus TS 5135 electron microscope (Tescan) with an accelerating voltage of 30 kV.

*CHN elemental analysis was performed on a CHNS/O FlashSmart Elemental Analyzer (Thermo Scientific).

*Dynamic mechanical and thermal analysis (DMTA) measurement was performed on an ARES G2 rheometer (TA Instruments, USA), when the sample was between −80 °C and +150 °C at a linear heating rate of 3 °C/min in a nitrogen atmosphere. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of the material was determined as the maximum loss factor (tan delta).

*Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA): Thermal stability of the samples was measured on a TGA Pyris 1 Perkin Elmer. A sample weighing approximately 10 mg was heated at a constant rate of 10 °C/min from 30 °C to 600 °C in a nitrogen atmosphere, the nitrogen flow rate was 25 ml/min.


______Methods of data processing______
The dataset contains only raw data as no processing was necessary for their evaluation. 


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______File formats______
* SEC chromatograms – CSV 
* SEM and OM images – TIFF files
* FT-IR spectra – original SP + converted ASC
* DMTA data – converted from XSLX to CSV
* TGA records – original TG1D + converted TXT
* Tabular data – converted from XSLX to CSV
* Text documents – converted from DOCX to PDF

______Date formats______
* YYYY-MM-DD
* HH-MM-SS 24hr format

______Units and abbreviations______
* All FTIR spectra are in Wavenumber (cm^-1) vs Absorbance (-)
* All SEC chromatograms are in Time (min) vs Signal Intensity (-)
* All DMTA are in Temperature (°C) vs Moduli (Pa)
* All TGA records are in Temperature (°C) vs Weight (mg)

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