Macroporous poly(methyl methacrylate) produced by phase separation during polymerisation in solution

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) sponges were obtained by polymerization in a solution with monomer/ethanol ratios up to 20:80. The material obtained after the elimination of the solvent present a homogeneous distribution of dispersed pores up to a monomer/ethanol ratio lower than 40:60. For higher ethanol contents in the reacting mixture, the morphology of the sponge corresponds to a network of PMMA microparticles, leaving large empty spaces leading to highly porous structure. The monomer/ethanol ratio during polymerization has a large influence on the porosity, thermal, and mechanical properties of the material and, for large solvent contents, on the size of the polymer microparticles.     

机械球磨与反应烧结合成Sr2CeO4发光体的研究

Sr₂CeO₄ phosphor was synthesized by mechanical milling and reactive sintering in this work. The solid state reaction of SrCO₃and CeO₂ (2∶1) started at about 850 ℃ and completed at 1 000 ℃ for about 4 h. Two types of formation mechanism of Sr₂CeO₄ were proposed. When the starting powder mixture was fired above 1 000 ℃, the unstable intermediate phase SrCeO₃was developed, which then reacted with SrCO₃to form the final product Sr₂CeO₄, however, SrCO₃and CeO₂ converted directly to Sr₂CeO₄ at a lower temperature. The XRD results showed the crystal structure of Sr₂CeO₄ was orthorhombic. The emission spectra displayed a broad band with maximum at about 465 nm. The mechanical milling of starting power mixture and the sintering temperature had no effect on this emission spectra.     

Fibers and 3D mesh scaffolds from biodegradable starch-based blends: production and characterization

The aim of this work is the production of fibers from biodegradable polymers to obtain 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering of hard tissues. The scaffolds required for this highly demanding application need to have, as well as the biological and mechanical characteristics, a high degree of porosity with suitable dimensions for cell seeding and proliferation. Furthermore, the open cell porosity should have adequate interconnectivity for a continuous flow of nutrients and outflow of cell metabolic residues as well as to allow cell growth into confluent layers. Blends of corn starch, a natural biodegradable polymer, with other synthetic polymers (poly(ethylene vinyl alcohol), poly(epsilon-caprolactone), poly(lactic acid)) were selected for this work because of their good balance of properties, namely biocompatibility, processability and mechanical properties. Melt spinning was used to produce fibers from all the blends and 3D meshes from one of the starch-poly(lactic acid) blends. The experimental characterization included the evaluation of the tensile mechanical properties and thermal properties of the fibers and the compression stiffness, porosity and degradation behavior of the 3D meshes. Light microscopy picture of 3D meshes.     

氯化钠在球形纳米氧化铈形成过程中的作用

以水合碳酸铈为原料, 以氯化钠作为助磨剂和阻聚剂, 采用机械活化法制备了球形纳米氧化铈, 用XRD法研究了水合碳酸铈与氯化钠质量比、球磨时间、煅烧温度对CeO2粉体晶粒度的影响, 用TEM对最终产物粒子进行形貌观察. 结果表明: 在碳酸铈的球磨过程及其随后的煅烧过程中, 氯化钠的存在起到了很好的助磨和阻聚作用, 所得CeO2为类球形粒子, 分散性较好, 晶粒度约为30～50 nm.     

聚苯基单醚喹噁啉薄膜的性能与物理老化

研究了物理老化对聚苯基单醚喹啉薄膜的结构与力学性能的影响 .用差示扫描量热计 (DSC)及正电子湮没寿命谱 (PALS)方法表征了两种不同物理老化条件试样的凝聚结构以及自由体积的差别 .结果表明 ,物理老化使聚苯基单醚喹啉薄膜玻璃化转变温度移向高温 ,在其末端出现热焓吸收峰 ,分子链堆砌紧密使自由体积减小 ,分子可动性降低 .用动态力学分析 (DMTA)以及静态拉伸性能测试等方法研究了两类试样的力学性能 ,结果表明 ,物理老化后 ,试样的动态储能模量稍有增加 ,力学损耗降低 .而静态拉伸实验的断裂应变降低 ,屈服应力增加 ,断裂能降低 ,试样在宏观上由韧性断裂变为明显的脆性断裂 .     

Diffusion current on a nonuniform electrode: Calculation with integral equations

Identity of mathematical problems concerning calculation of the distribution of reactants’ concentrations and the current near the surface of a nonuniform (strip) electrode and distribution of displacements and forces in the case of an elastic layer “antiplane” deformation caused by the punch action. Formulas for calculating the current at a strip electrode are derived for various ratios between the electrode width and the diffusion layer thickness by means of asymptotic methods designed for calculating problems of mechanical contact interactions. It is noted that calculations of the diffusion current for involved activity distributions at the electrode surface may benefit from asymptotic methods of mechanics of contact interactions.     

Modeling of serine protease prototype reactions with the flexible effective fragment potential quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical method

A complete cycle of chemical transformations for the serine protease prototype reaction is modeled following calculations with the flexible effective fragment quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical (QM/MM) method. The initial molecular model is based on the crystal structure of the trypsin–bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor complex including all atoms of the enzyme within approximately 15–18 Å of the oxygen center O of the catalytic serine residue. Several selections of the QM/MM partitioning are considered. Fractions of the side chains of the residues from the catalytic triad (serine, histidine and aspartic acid) and a central part of a model substrate around the C–N bond to be cleaved are included into the QM subsystem. The remaining part, or the MM subsystem, is represented by flexible chains of small effective fragments, whose potentials explicitly contribute to the Hamiltonian of the QM part, but the corresponding fragment–fragment interactions are described by the MM force fields. The QM/MM boundaries are extended over the C–C bonds of the peptides assigned to the QM subsystem in the enzyme, C–C and C–N bonds in model substrates. Multiple geometry optimizations have been performed by using the RHF/6-31G method in the QM part and OPLSAA or AMBER sets of MM parameters, resulting in a series of stationary points on the complex potential-energy surfaces. All structures generally accepted for the serine protease catalytic cycle have been located. Energies at the stationary points found have been recomputed at the MP2/6-31+G^* level for the QM part in the protein environment. Structural changes along the reaction path are analyzed with special attention to hydrogen-bonding networks. In the case of a model substrate selected as a short peptide CH₃(NHCO-CH₂)₂ – HN–CO–(CH₂–NHCO)CH₃ the computed energy profile for the acylation step shows too high activation energy barriers. The energetics of this rate-limiting step is considerably improved, if more realistic model for the substrate is considered, following the motifs of the ThrI11–GlyI12–ProI13-–CysI14–LysI15–AlaI16–ArgI17–IleI18–IleI19 sequence of the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor.     

Molecular caps for full quantum mechanical computation of peptide-water interaction energy

We present a systematic study of numerical accuracy of various forms of molecular caps that are employed in a recently developed molecular fractionation scheme for full quantum mechanical computation of protein-molecule interaction energy. A previously studied pentapeptide (Gly-Ser-Ala-Asp-Val) or P5 interacting with a water molecule is used as a benchmark system for numerical testing. One-dimensional potential energy curves are generated for a number of peptide-water interaction pathways. Our study shows that various forms of caps all give consistently accurate energies compared to the corresponding full system calculation with only small deviations. We also tested the accuracy of cutting peptide backbone at different positions and comparisons of results are presented.     

Mechanical,thermal and morphological properties of poly(ε‐caprolactone)/zein blends

Blends of poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL) with zein (PCL/zein) in different proportions (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75 and 0/100 wt% containing 5 wt% glycerol) were compared based on their mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation at break, and Young's modulus), and on their thermal properties, the latter determined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA). The morphology of the materials was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Blends of PCL/zein showed reduced tensile strength and elongation at break, but increased Young's modulus compared to the pure polymers, in agreement with the DMTA and SEM results. These findings indicated that PCL and zein were incompatible. TGA showed that the thermal stability was enhanced by the addition of zein to PCL, whereas SEM showed a poor interfacial interaction between the polymers. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.