Synthesis and adsorption properties of nanocrystalline ferrites for kinetic modeling development

Nanocrystalline ferrites are known to be used in different applications, including industrial wastewater management. For environmental water issues, one of the most widely applied techniques is the adsorption of pollutants. The adsorption capacity of Congo red (CR) dye on different MFe₂O₄ (M = Co²⁺, Mg²⁺, Mn²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Zn²⁺) ferrites, synthesized by coprecipitation method, was determined. Specific isotherms and kinetic models were used to characterize the adsorption process. Interesting results were obtained for MgFe₂O₄ with adsorption capacity ranging from 39% up to 70% dependent on the initial dye concentration. Furthermore, an artificial intelligence model based on neural network was developed in order to model the adsorption rates followed by the generation of 3D adsorption rate models for each type of synthesized ferrite. These models were obtained in order to provide information about the particle-dye system`s kinetics at various initial CR concentration. Specific techniques were used to characterize the functionalized magnetic particles.     

The Politics of Textiles in the Romanian Contemporary Art Scene

This paper explores the means and ends to which textiles are employed by contemporary Romanian artists in their intermedial practices. The history of textile arts in Romania’s cultural-political sphere has received little academic attention in studies dedicated to recent history. The argument put forth is that tapestry, rugs, and other textiles associated in the past with undervalued housework or folk art—and ranked as a lower form of artistry in the artistic hierarchy—are reinvested with political, critical, and mnemonic meanings. The first section addresses the convoluted relationship between textile arts and Romania’s communist era during Nicolae Ceau?escu’s regime by highlighting the ways in which the authoritarian state supervised and controlled the production of so-called folk textile art to political ends. The next sections elaborate on the artistic production of Geta Br?tescu, Ana Lupa?, and Ion Grigorescu, all of whom produced contemporary textile art—often derogatively called “applied art”—whose meanings and purposes eluded the official requirements of national folk art. In the last section the paper scrutinizes the political, critical, and artistic comeback of textile arts as cultural memory since the fall of the communist regime in 1989.