Abstract: A process for making a textile from a feedstock comprising a quantity of post-consumer apparel, each item of apparel having a desired textile composition and devoid of non-textile materials, including shredding the feedstock to obtain textile shreds, providing the textile shreds as a component in at least a first layer of a plurality of stacked layers comprising at least a second layer of supporting material, and feeding the plurality of stacked layers through a needle-felting machine in a plurality of passes, including at least one pass in each of a plurality of different 90-degree offset orientations. The textile shreds, or a mixture of the textile shreds and new textile fibers comprising no more than 15%-20% new textile fibers, may be carded with a carding machine to form a batting. Products made by the process may include a 100% cotton mulch mat for agricultural use.

Abstract: Surfaces of silica-containing materials, such as the inner walls of silica capillaries, used in chromatographic, particularly electrophoretic, separations are coated with an organic polymer layer to reduce or eliminate surface charges. The layer is applied by first converting the silanol groups on the surface to silicon halide groups, then reacting these groups with an organometallic reagent having a terminal ethenyl moiety, preferably vinyl or allyl lithium or a vinyl or allyl magnesium halide, to convert the silicon halide groups to Si--R groups where the R retains the terminal ethenyl moiety, and finally reacting these ethenyl groups newly attached to the surface with a neutral organic monomer in an addition polymerization reaction to form a monomolecular noncrosslinked polymer layer over the surface. The resulting polymer layer is linked to the silica directly through a Si--C bond which is stable over a wide range of pH conditions.

Abstract: Gels are formed in capillary tubes by electrophoretically drawing a charged polymerization initiator into a capillary tube pre-filled with monomer, crosslinking agent and catalyst. The rate of travel of the initiator is slow enough to maintain a sharp leading edge or front, thereby causing polymerization to occur in a progressive manner from one end of the capillary to the other. The shrinkage inherent in the polymerization reaction is thus compensated by fluid movement ahead of the traveling initiator front, and discontinuities in the gel which would otherwise be formed are avoided.

Abstract: Surfaces of silica-containing materials, such as the inner walls of silica capillaries, used in chromatographic, particularly electrophoretic, separations are coated with an organic polymer layer to reduce or eliminate surface charges. The layer is applied by first converting the silanol groups on the surface to silicon halide groups, then reacting these groups with an organometallic reagent having a terminal ethenyl moiety, preferably vinyl or allyl lithium or a vinyl or allyl magnesium halide, to convert the silicon halide groups to Si--R groups where the R retains the terminal ethenyl moiety, and finally reacting these ethenyl groups newly attached to the surface with a neutral organic monomer in an addition polymerization reaction to form a monomolecular noncrosslinked polymer layer over the surface. The resulting polymer layer is linked to the silica directly through a Si--C bond which is stable over a wide range of pH conditions.