Thermal degradation of polymer-fire retardant mixtures: Part IV—Mechanism of fire retardancy in polypropylene-chlorinated paraffin mixtures

From oxygen and nitrous oxide indices of polypropylene-chlorinated paraffin mixtures it can be deduced that, in addition to the flame poisoning effect of HCl eliminated by the chloroparaffin, the lower flammability of the volatile products formed by thermal degradation of polypropylene heated in the presence of this additive seems to contribute to its fire retardance activity.     

Determination of the Composition of Cyclopolymers in Terms of Structural Units

A method based on the analytical evaluation of residual unsaturations and on the knowledge of the cyclization ratios is presented for the determination of the cyclopolymer composition in terms of structural units. The application of this method to the products of the free radical polymerization of vinyl-transcrotonate and of divinyl ether is described.     

Preparation and Flame Retardancy Properties of Novel PA12 and PE/Layered Titanoniobates Nanocomposites

Summary: We report herein a study performed on a layered titanoniobate KTiNbO₅ modified by octadecylamine to evaluate the fire retardancy properties of this novel hybrid nanofiller dispersed in PA12 and LLDPE, by polymer melt intercalation. The nanocomposites have been characterized using Electron Microscopy techniques to evaluate the degree of exfoliation and the morphologies. Thermogravimetric analyses and cone calorimeter tests have been carried out to assess the fire retardant performances.     

Polypropylene Nanocomposites,Study of the Influence of the Nanofiller Nature on Morphology and Material Properties

Summary: In this paper we investigate the influence of various nanofilllers' aspect ratio, chemical nature and organic modification on some selected polypropylene properties, such as crystallinity, thermal and mechanical resistance and fire behaviour. Materials were prepared by twin-screw extrusion and characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, tensile and cone calorimeter tests. Fillers characteristics were found to influence at different extents, and for different reasons, the material final properties.     

Local search and genetic algorithm for the job shop scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times

The Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSP) is an example of a combinatorial optimization problem that has interested researchers for several decades. In this paper we confront an extension of this problem called JSP with Sequence Dependent Setup Times (SDST-JSP). The approach extends a genetic algorithm and a local search method that demonstrated to be efficient in solving the JSP. For local search, we have formalized neighborhood structures that generalize three well-know structures defined for the JSP. We have conducted an experimental study across conventional benchmark instances showing that the genetic algorithm exploited in combination with the local search, considering all three neighborhoods at the same time, provides the best results. Moreover, this approach outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods.     

Uniqueness of unconditional basis in quasi-Banach spaces which are not sufficiently Euclidean

Strongly absolute bases are, roughly speaking, purely nonlocally convex bases in quasi-Banach spaces. When, in addition, they are unconditional then the discrete lattice structure they induce in the space is lattice anti-Euclidean. In this brief note we characterize the complemented unconditional basic sequences in those quasi-Banach spaces with strongly absolute unconditional basis, and use this result to derive the uniqueness of unconditional basis in many classical quasi-Banach spaces.     

On the restricted arc-connectivity of s-geodetic digraphs

For a strongly connected digraph D the minimum ,cardinality of an arc-cut over all arc-cuts restricted arc-connectivity λ′（D） is defined as the S satisfying that D - S has a non-trivial strong component D1 such that D - V（D1） contains an arc. Let S be a subset of vertices of D. We denote by w＋（S） the set of arcs uv with u ∈ S and v S, and by w-（S） the set of arcs uv with u S and v ∈ S. A digraph D = （V, A） is said to be λ′-optimal if λ′（D） =ξ′（D）, where ξ′（D） is the minimum arc-degree of D defined as ξ（D） = min {ξ′（xy） ： xy ∈ A}, and ξ′（xy） = min（｜ω＋（{x,y}）｜, ｜w-（{x,y}）｜, ｜w＋（x） ∪ w- （y） ｜, ｜w- （x） ∪ω＋ （y）｜}. In this paper a sufficient condition for a s-geodetic strongly connected digraph D to be λ′-optimal is given in terms of its diameter. Furthermore we see that the h-iterated line digraph Lh（D） of a s-geodetic digraph is λ′-optimal for certain iteration h.     

Nylon‐6 nanocomposites,study of the influence of the nanofiller nature on morphology and material properties

In this article we investigated the influence of various nanofilllers' aspect ratio, chemical nature, and organic modification on some selected nylon‐6 properties, such as crystallinity, thermal and mechanical resistance, and fire behavior. Materials were prepared by twin‐screw extrusion and characterized by means of scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, tensile tests, and cone calorimeter. Fillers characteristics were found to influence at different extents the material final properties. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 47: 1935–1948, 2009     

Aharonov-Bohm superperiod in a Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer

We report an Aharonov-Bohm superperiod of five magnetic flux quanta (5h/e) observed in a Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer, where an edge channel of the 1/3 fractional quantum Hall fluid encircles an island of the 2/5 fluid. This result does not violate the gauge invariance argument of the Byers-Yang theorem because the magnetic flux, in addition to affecting the Aharonov-Bohm phase of the encircling 1/3 quasiparticles, creates the 2/5 quasiparticles in the island. The superperiod is accordingly understood as imposed by the anyonic statistical interaction of Laughlin quasiparticles.     

Effect of temperature and nanoparticle type on hydrolytic degradation of poly(lactic acid) nanocomposites

PLA and its nanocomposite films based on modified montmorillonite (CLO30B) or fluorohectorite (SOM MEE) and unmodified sepiolite (SEPS9) were processed at a clay loading of 5 wt% and hydrolytically degraded at 37 and 58 °C in a pH 7.0 phosphate-buffered solution. An effective hydrolytic degradation for neat PLA and nanocomposites was obtained at both temperatures of degradation, with higher extent at 58 °C due to more extensive micro-structural changes and molecular rearrangements, allowing a higher water absorption into the polymer matrix.The addition of CLO30B and SEPS9 delayed the degradation of PLA at 37 °C due to their inducing PLA crystallization effect and/or to their high water uptake reducing the amount of water available for polymer matrix hydrolysis. The presence of SOM MEE also induced polymer crystallization, but it was also found to catalyze hydrolysis of PLA. Concerning hydrolysis at 58 °C, the presence of any nanoparticle did not significantly affect the degradation trend of PLA, achieving similar molecular weight decreases for all the studied materials. This was related to the easy access of water molecules to the bulk material at this temperature, minimizing the effect of polymer crystallinity clay nature and aspect ratio on the polymer degradation.