Band 41, Heft 2

Internal energy and entropy contribution to the elasticity of carbon nanotube reinforced polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is evaluated using statistical theory of rubber elasticity. Stress–temperature measurements were performed and the data was used to calculate the internal energy contribution to elastic stress. Interesting aspects such as increase in energy and low entropy contribution to the elasticity of carbon nanotube reinforced PDMS is observed. This can be related t o the deformation behavior of the network chains of pristine elastomers and the directional reorientation of nanotube entanglements. While the entropy change is associated with reorientation or directional preference of the carbon nanotube entanglements, the internal energy change is associated with structural bending or stretching of the nanotubes. A reversible deformation of nanotube entanglements complements rubber like elasticity and the present study gives insights into the thermoelasticity of reinforced elastomers as well as the elastic behavior of carbon nanotube entanglements inside a polymer matrix.

The effect of Joncryl ADR ® -4368 (abbreviated ADR) and dicumyl peroxide (DCP) on poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT)/poly(lactic acid) (PLA) blend was investigated. Two different blending procedures were adopted: (1) one-step blending of all components for 8 min; (2) premixing of PBAT and ADR (or DCP) for 4 min followed by addition of PLA blending for 4 min. ADR and DCP were effective compatibilizers for the PBAT/PLA blend by one-step blending which were confirmed by improving the phase interface between PBAT and PLA, decreasing the dispersed phase size, increasing the elasticity, viscosity and tensile strength. Moreover, the addition of ADR into PBAT/PLA blend by two-step blending was more efficient than the one-step blending based on refined morphology and further increased tensile properties. The two-step blending was beneficial to produce a larger amount of PBAT-graft-PLA (PBAT-g-PLA) copolymers at the phase interface. However, DCP was added to the PBAT/PLA blend by the two-step blending which showed lower properties than one-step blending. DCP triggered free branching reactions in a fast way. Based on the character of compatibilizers, choosing properly blending procedures can enlarge the tensile properties. These results would be interesting for industrial polymer materials, and may be importance to the wider practical application of PBAT/PLA blends.

In this work, the effects of the morphological variation and the polymer/polymer interface on the tensile modulus of binary polymer blends were evaluated using a combined modeling method. The characteristics of the polymer/polymer interface region were evaluated using a neural network system and the results were used to improve the analytical model. The model accuracy was investigated by comparing its predictions with the tensile test results of some prepared iPP/PA blend samples and also some other data from literature which revealed an acceptable accuracy (error < 5%).

Nanocomposite films of polymethylmethacrylate PMMA with Sn 0.75 Fe 0.25 S 2 nanoparticles (NPs) were fabricated by both thermolysis and casting techniques. Changes in PMMA/Sn 0.75 Fe 0.25 S 2 nanocomposite (NCP) due to gamma irradiation have been measured. XRD results indicate that the gamma doses of 10–80 kGy cause intermolecular crosslinking that reduces the ordered portion in the NPs. Bonding between the NPs and the host PMMA was confirmed by FTIR. TGA results indicate an enhancement in thermal stability in the NCP films irradiated with doses 20–80 kGy. The optical band gap was reduced from 3.23 to 2.47 eV upon gamma irradiation up to 80 kGy due bonding between the NPs and PMMA which enhanced the amorphous part of the NPs. Finally, the color variation between the blank and irradiated films (ΔE) was determined. Color changes immensely when the PMMA/Sn 0.75 Fe 0.25 S 2 NCP films are gamma irradiated. Values of ΔE were as much as 31.6 which is an acceptable match in commercial reproduction on printing presses.

The transport phenomena across polymeric membrane may be enhanced by applying various strengths inside or outside the system. Recently, polymer inclusion membrane (PIM) has been considered one of the most popular methods that acts as a sink for the contaminant and immobilizes it. In the literature, there is no report about how to achieve the synthesis of multi-layer PIMs. In this paper, an improvement of a novel category of membrane without carrier for performing ion separation is reported. Different membranes were elaborated from binary mixtures of polymers, cellulose triacetate (CTA), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) using 2-nitrophenyl octyle-ether (NPOE) as plasticizer and carrier in the same time, in order to increase specific interactions between the different polymers. The membranes (Polymer 1– NPOE – Polymer 2) were synthesized by phase inversion method modified by changing the procedure of a plasticizer/carrier addition and characterized by FTIR, TGA, SEM, zeta potential and contact angle. The CTA-based membranes exhibited well-defined pores partially filled with the second polymer and NPOE. Overall, our results showed that the addition of NPOE resulted in homogeneous membranes with modified physical properties, such as thickness, and hydrophobicity. A study of transport of Pb(II) using the synthesized membranes was studied. Dialysis experiments of lead ions across a polymeric membrane have shown that (CTA + NPOE + PMMA) and (PMMA + NPOE + PVC) membranes proved a good performance in one stage by fixing 12.15 and 25.31% of lead, respectively, without any additionally added carrier and acids. These results confirm the affinity between a basic polymer (poly-methyl methacrylate) and the metallic ion (Pb 2+ ).

A PPY/TiO 2 /PPY jacket nanotube array was fabricated by coating PPY layer on the external and internal surface of a tube wall-separated TiO 2 nanotube array. It shows coaxial triple-walled nanotube structure with two PPY nanotube layers sandwiching one TiO 2 nanotube layer. PPY/TiO 2 /PPY reveals much higher current response than TiO 2 . The theoretical calculation indicates PPY/TiO 2 /PPY reveals higher density of states and lower band gap, accordingly presenting higher conductivity and electroactivity, which is consistent with the experimental result of a higher current response. The electroactivity is highly enhanced in H 2 SO 4 rather than Na 2 SO 4 electrolyte due to feasible pronation process of PPY in an acidic solution. PPY/TiO 2 /PPY could conduct the redox reaction in H 2 SO 4 electrolyte which involves the reversible protonation/deprotonation and HSO 4 − doping/dedoping process and accordingly contributes to Faradaic pseudocapacitance. The specific capacitance is highly enhanced from 1.7 mF cm −2 of TiO 2 to 123.4 mF cm −2 of PPY/TiO 2 /PPY at 0.1 mA cm −2 in H 2 SO 4 electrolyte. The capacitance also declines from 123.4 to 31.7 mF cm −2 when the current density increases from 0.1 to 1 mA cm −2 , presenting the rate capacitance retention of 26.7% due to the semiconductivity of TiO 2 . A PPY/TiO 2 /PPY jacket nanotube with high charge storage capacitance is regarded as a promising supercapacitor electrode material.

Micron-sized magnetic particles currently find a wide range of applications in many areas including biotechnology, biochemistry, colloid sciences and medicine. In this study, magnetic poly(glycidyl methacrylate) microparticles were synthesized by providing a polymerization around Fe(II)-Ni(II) magnetic double salt. Adsorption of lysozyme protein from aqueous systems was studied with these particles. Adsorption studies were performed with changing pH values, variable amount of adsorbent, different interaction times and lysozyme amounts. The adsorption capacity of the particles was investigated, and a value of about 95.6 mg lysozyme/g microparticle was obtained. The enzyme activity of the immobilized lysozyme was examined and found to be more stable and reusable compared to the free enzyme. The immobilized enzyme still showed 80% activity after five runs and managed to maintain 78% of its initial activity at the end of 60 days. Besides, in the antimicrobial analysis study for six different microorganisms, the minimum inhibitory concentration value of lysozyme immobilized particles was calculated as 125 μg/mL like free lysozyme. Finally, the adsorption interaction was found to be compatible with the Langmuir isotherm model. Accordingly, it can be said that magnetic poly(GMA) microparticles are suitable materials for lysozyme immobilization and immobilized lysozyme can be used in biotechnological studies.

In this study, an injection molding machine with a low-fracture-fiber mechanism was designed with three stages: a plasticizing stage, an injection stage, and a packing stage. The fiber-fracture behavior is observed under the screw (plasticizing stage) of low-compression/shear ratio for the ultra-long fiber during the molding process. The molding material employed in this study was 25-mm-ultra-long-glass-fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP/U-LGF). In addition, a thickness of 3 mm and a width of 12 mm spiral-flow-mold were constructed for studying the melt flow length and flow-length ratio through an experiment. The experimental results showed that the use of an injection molding machine with a three-stage mechanism decreased the fiber length when the screw speed was increased. On average, each fiber was shortened by 50% (>15 mm on average) from its original length of 25 mm. Longer glass fibers were more resistant to melt filling, and as the fiber length was reduced, the mixing between the melt and glass fibers was improved. Thus, the melt fluidity and fiber ratios were increased. In addition, the mixing/flow direction of the melt had an impact on the dispersion and arrangement of glass fibers, thus the tensile strength of PP/U-LGF increased.

A poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) bilayer antireflective coating (ARC) is designed based on polymeric microphase separation and matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation (MAPLE). The spin-coated layer shows subwavelength porous network structures, after phase separation via annealing and removal of the polystyrene (PS) phase, while the MAPLE deposited surface layer exhibits a biomimic moth-eye structure on glass to trap the incident light. The elaborate spin coated structure can be controlled flexibly by changing the ratio of mixture, annealing time and temperature, and the moth-eye structure can also be tuned by deposition parameters. The transmittance of the ARC presents a maximum of 95.64% and an average of 94.81% in visible range. The moth-eye structure on glass substrate formed by nanoglobules makes positive contributions to the improvement of transmittance according to UV–Vis result and simulation. The wetting motion of PMMA globules is observed as well by the comparison of AFM surface morphologies and cross-sectional profiles of globules on glass and polymer thin film. This work is a novel attempt to fabricate bilayer ARC with two different structures by a single polymeric material and will provide new route for fabrication of multilayer ARCs.