Comparison of various chemometric approaches for large near infrared spectroscopic data of feed and feed products

In the present study, different multivariate regression techniques have been applied to two large near-infrared data sets of feed and feed ingredients in order to fulfil the regulations and laws that exist about the chemical composition of these products. The aim of this paper was to compare the performances of different linear and nonlinear multivariate calibration techniques: PLS, ANN and LS-SVM. The results obtained show that ANN and LS-SVM are very powerful methods for non-linearity but LS-SVM can also perform quite well in the case of linear models. Using LS-SVM an improvement of the RMS for independent test sets of 10% is obtained in average compared to ANN and of 24% compared to PLS.     

In situ radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate in a solution of surface modified TiO2 and nanoparticles

Surface modified TiO₂ nanoparticles dissolved in toluene were encapsulated in PMMA by in situ radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate initiated by 2,2′-azobisisobutyronitrile. The surface modification of the TiO₂ nanoparticles (average diameter of 4.5 nm) was achieved by the formation of a charge transfer complex between TiO₂ nanoparticles and 6-palmitate ascorbic acid. The surface modified TiO₂/nanoparticles were characterized using UV−Vis and FTIR spectroscopy, while the obtained polymer nanocomposites were characterized using reflection and ¹H NMR spectroscopy, as well as gel permeation chromatography. The influence of the TiO₂ nanoparticles on the thermal properties of the PMMA matrix was investigated using thermo-gravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The glass transition temperature of the polymer was not influenced by the presence of the nanoparticles while the thermal stability was significantly improved.     

Synthesis and characterization of anionic lanthanide complexes {[o-(Me3SiN)2C6H4]Ln(MeC5H4)2}{Li(DME)3} (Ln = Yb, Sm, Nd) and their catalytic activity for the polymerization of methyl methacrylate

The syntheses and structures of a series of new lanthanide complexes supported by a chelating diamide ligand N,N′-bis(trimethylsilyl)-o-phenylenediamine are described. Anhydrous LnCl₃ reacts with Li₂[o-(Me₃SiN)₂C₆H₄], followed by treatment of NaC₅H₄Me in 1:1:2 molar ratio to afford the corresponding anionic complexes: {[o-(Me₃SiN)₂C₆H₄]Ln(MeC₅H₄)₂}{Li(DME)₃} [Ln = Yb (1), Sm (2), Nd(3)] in high yield. These complexes were characterized by elemental analysis, IR and ¹H NMR. The molecular structures of 1 and 2 were further determined by X-ray diffraction techniques to be an ion-pair complex composed by an anion [o-(Me₃SiN)₂C₆H₄]Ln(MeC₅H₄)₂] and a cation [Li(DME)₃]. Complexes 1-3 showed high catalytic activity for the polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) at r.t., giving the syndiotactic-rich polymers with relatively narrow molecular weight distributions (M_w/M_n = 1.64-1.82).