Effect of PBT molecular weight and reactive compatibilization on the dispersed‐phase coalescence of PBT/SAN blends

Poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT)/styrene‐acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN) blends were investigated with respect to their phase morphology. The SAN component was kept as dispersed phase and PBT as matrix phase and the PBT/SAN viscosity ratio was changed by using different PBT molecular weights. PBT/SAN blends were also compatibilized by adding methyl methacrylate‐co‐glycidyl methacrylate‐co‐ethyl acrylate terpolymer, MGE, which is an in situ reactive compatibilizer for melt blending. In noncompatibilized blends, the dispersed phase particle size increased with SAN concentration due to coalescence effects. Static coalescence experiments showed evidence of greater coalescence in blends with higher viscosity ratios. For noncompatibilized PBT/SAN/MGE blends with high molecular weight PBT as matrix phase, the average particle size of SAN phase does not depend on the SAN concentration in the blends. However noncompatibilized blends with low molecular weight PBT showed a significant increase in SAN particle size with the SAN concentration. The effect of MGE epoxy content and MGE molecular weight on the morphology of the PBT/SAN blend was also investigated. As the MGE epoxy content increased, the average particle size of SAN initially decreased with both high and low molecular weight PBT phase, thereafter leveling off with a critical content of epoxy groups in the blend. This critical content was higher in the blends containing low molecular weight PBT than in those with high molecular weight PBT. At a fixed MGE epoxy content, a decrease in MGE molecular weight yielded PBT/SAN blends with dispersed nanoparticles with an average size of about 40 nm. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2010     

The solar-chemical photo-Friedel-Crafts heteroacylation of 1,4-quinones

Photochemical reactions between 1,4-benzo- and 1,4-naphthoquinone and several heteroaromatic carbaldehydes were investigated under solar irradiation conditions. These reactions gave the corresponding heteroacylated hydroquinones in the range 71%-92% yield.     

Quantum mechanics: cleaning up metaphysical baggage

The dynamic electronic structure of atoms and molecules can be directly observed by means of the (e, 2e) reaction, which measures the distribution of energies and momenta of two electrons in coincidence after a knockout reaction initiated by an electron beam of known momentum incident on a molecular gas target. The molecular state for each event is identified by the electron separation energy. The recoil momentum for each event is known from the difference of measured initial and final momenta. It has been verified that values of this momentum are equal under suitable conditions to the momentum of the electron in the target immediately before knockout. Thus the spherically-averaged electron momentum distribution for each molecular orbital is measured. This is directly related to molecular orbitals calculated by the methods of quantum chemistry. Properties obtained by this method for different types of molecules are discussed.     

Large area InAlAs/InGaAs metal semiconductor metal photodiode with very low dark current and its frequency response

An MBE grown InGaAs metal semiconductor metal (MSM) photodiode (PD) with an InAlAs barrier enhancement layer is reported that has very low dark current and high speed characteristics. The detector using Cr/Au Schottky metal fingers with 4m spacing on a large active area of 300×300m2 shows a low dark current of 38nA at 10V. This corresponds to a dark current density of 0.42pA/m2 and is, to our knowledge, the best dark current ever obtained from a large area InGaAs MSM PD. The device also shows a low capacitance of 0.8pF and a high 3dB bandwidth of 2.4GHz. By fitting the measured frequency response to a model consisting of both RC time and transit time limited responses, we show that the device has an RC time and a transit time limited 3dB bandwidth of 3.0 and 4.9GHz, respectively. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Construction and evaluation of ion-selective electrodes for potassium and calcium with a summing operational amplifier. Application to wine analysis

Electrodes selective to potassium and calcium with improved senstivity were constructed like conventional electrode (ISEs), but used an operational amplifier to sum the potentials supplied by the four membranes (ESOAs). The results obtained during the evaluation of their working characteristics were compared to those obtained by conventional ISEs and were found to be similar, but with higher precision. The electrodes were used in the potentiometric determination of potassium, calcium and magnesium in wines. The results given by ESOAs were more precise than those from ISEs. The results obtained by potentiometry were in good agreement with those from AES for potassium and AAS for calcium and magnesium.     

Cherimoline et dihydrocherimoline: deux nouvelles γ-lactones bis-tetrahydrofuranniques possedant une activite antimicrobienne

The structures of Cherimolin and Dihydrocherimolin, two new antimicrobial γ-lactone-bis-tetrahydrofuranes from $\text{Annona cherimolia}$ Mill., Annonaceae, have been elucidated by spectroscopic analysis.     

An Air Force Crew Allocation and Scheduling Problem

This paper considers an airline crew allocation and scheduling problem faced by certain divisions of the United States Air Force. Two variants of the problem under consideration were posed to us by the U.S. Air Force. This paper reports our experience with two heuristic methods developed, each applicable to either variant of the problem. Although the problem described herein is peculiar to this situation, the heuristic scheduling and dispatching rules developed have been found to be very effective and are generally applicable in other related contexts of routeing and crew and vehicle scheduling problems as well. The two algorithms developed have been applied to a coded set of real world data. The results indicate that each one of the two methods is preferable to the other for one of the two variants of the problem. This suggests an overall effective composite technique.     

Electronic transitions in 1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives

Single electronic transitions in 1,4-naphthoquinone and seven of its derivatives substituted in the quinoid system have been theoretically studied semi-empirical SCF MO CI calculations, in the frame of π and all valence electron (AVE) approximations. Dipole electrostatic contributions to the shifts originating from the solvent have been calculated and the local nature of the most significant transitions has been analyzed. The results agree satisfactorily with experiment, showing the effects of the substituents, which in some cases are underestimated.     

Hypoellipticity for infinitely degenerate quasilinear equations and the dirichlet problem

In [10], we considered a class of infinitely degenerate quasilinear equations of the form div $A(x,w)\nabla w + \overrightarrow r (x,w) \cdot \nabla w + f(x,w) = 0$ and derived a priori bounds for high order derivatives D ^a w of their solutions in terms of w and ?w. We now show that it is possible to obtain bounds in terms of just w for a further subclass of such equations, and we apply the resulting estimates to prove that continuous weak solutions are necessarily smooth. We also obtain existence, uniqueness, and interior ${\varrho ^\infty }$ -regularity of solutions for the corresponding Dirichlet problem with continuous boundary data.