Micellar Copolymerization:the State of the Arts

Over the past two decades, hydrophobically modified water-soluble polymers (HMWSPs),particularly hydrophobically associating polyacrylamides (HAPAMs), have attracted increased interest owing to their practical and fundamental importance[1]. This system usually consists of a hydrophilic backbone with a small proportion (generally less than 2 mol %) of hydrophobic pendent groups. When dissolved in aqueous solutions, the apolar moieties tend to exclude water and are held together by intra- and intermolecular hydrophobic associations. This leads to a transitional network structure that induces a substantial increase in solution viscosity. Such viscosity-building ability is further elevated upon adding salt or increasing temperature due to the enhanced polarity.Additionally, the dynamic associating junctions can be ruptured upon high shear stress, but re-formed when the force ceases. All these unique properties enable HAPAMs attractiveness to various industrial uses in which the control of fluid theology is required.However, it is a great challenge to synthesize HAPAMs since acrylamide and hydrophobic comonomers are mutually incompatible. After attempts using heterogeneous, inverse emulsion,microemulsion, and precipitation copolymerization processes, the commonly accepted method is micellar free radical copolymerization in which an appropriate surfactant is used to solubilize the hydrophobic comonomer[2].In this paper, the sate of the arts for micellar copolymerization is comprehensively reviewed:1. the mechanism of micellar copolymerization;2. parameters affecting micellar copolymerization, including:(1) nature and level of hydrophobic comonomer;(2) nature and content of surfactant used;(3) initiator and temperature.3. structural characteristics of HAPAMs prepared via micellar copolymerization;4. properties of HAPAMs prepared via micellar copolymerization:(1) dilute solution properties;(2) semi-dilute solution properties.5. applications of micellar copolymerization.In short, the main goal of this review is trying to establish an interrelationship among .synthetic method, structure and properties, so as to give a guideline for "tailoring" the polymer structure to satisfy different specific end use.     

Communication: the rotational excitation of D2 by H: on the importance of the reactive channels

We report fully-quantum time-independent calculations of cross sections and rate coefficients for the collisional excitation and dissociation of D(2) by H, two astrophysically relevant processes. Our calculations are based on the recent H(3) global potential energy surface of Mielke et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 116, 4142 (2002)]. Results of exact three-dimensional calculations, i.e., including the reactive channels, are compared to pure inelastic two-dimensional calculations based on the rigid rotor approximation. A reasonable agreement is found between the two sets of inelastic cross sections over the whole energy range 10-9000 cm(-1). At the highest collisional energies, where the reactive channels are significant, the rigid rotor approach slightly overestimates the cross sections, as expected. At moderate collisional energies, however, the opposite behaviour is observed. The rigid rotor approach is found to be reliable at temperatures below ~500 K, with a significant but moderate contribution from reactive channels.     

麻——八大味之一

The spicy taste is stimulated by sanshool when eating Sichuan pepper. α-Hydroxy sanshool is one of the main components of the sanshool derivatives. In this paper, in form of a short story, we introduced the basic properties, physiological functions and synthetic method of α-hydroxy sanshool and the mechanism of spicy taste which is stimulated by α-hydroxy sanshool.     

Vorticity: Simplifying the analysis of the current density

The induced current density ( J ( r )) provides useful information about the electronic structure of molecules under a magnetic field ( B ). However, the analysis of its topology is cumbersome because of its vectorial nature. We show that its tropicity (direction of rotation) and its strength can be compressed in the triple product B ⋅ ∇ × J ( r ) (tp J ( r )) that is a scalar field. The topology of tp J ( r ) has clear similarities to the Laplacian of the electron density. Additionally, the topology of aromatic and antiaromatic compounds is notoriously different. The vorticity of J ( r ) is helpful to define the circulation of the current density, C, that contrary to other methods, can be easily defined for individual rings in polycyclic molecules. This allows tp J ( r ) to clearly reproduce the Clar's structure of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Letter: collision-induced dissociation of peptide thioesters: influence of the peptide length on the fragmentation

Five peptide thioesters of increasing length were fragmented under two processes, in-source and in- collision cell fragmentation, using an electrospray source coupled to a triple quadrupole. Comparison of their fragmentations was made in regard to the length. The two fragmentation conditions show that the peptide length has no influence on structural information and that the fragmentation efficiency is higher for the smallest peptides than for the longest. The particularity of these peptide thioesters consists on the neutral loss of ethanethiol. The absence of the a3 fragment ion and the presence of the (a3-17) ion on the CID mass spectra are noted.     

Copper-containing dendromesogens: the influence of the metal on the mesomorphism

The synthesis and liquid crystalline behaviour of the first and second generations of a dendrimeric structure based on poly(propyleneimine)(DAB-dendr(NH₂)_x) are reported. 4-(4-n-Alkoxybenzoyloxy)salicylaldehydes are used as mesogenic moieties attached at the peripheral amino groups of the dendrimers giving rise to dendromesogens with four and eight mesogenic branches. From these dendromesogens, considered as organic ligands, were prepared six metal-containing dendrimers which incorporate two or four copper atoms in their structures. All the dendrimeric ligands and three of the metal-containing dendrimers exhibit liquid crystalline properties which were studied by optical microscopy, DSC, X-ray diffraction and EPR spectroscopy.     

Aging of oil-in-water emulsions: the role of the oil

Controlling stability and aging of emulsions is important from commercial and scientific perspectives. Achieving such control comes through gaining an understanding of the relationship between emulsion constituents and microstructure and how these influence the kinetics and mechanism of destabilisation. We present here an investigation determining the rate of destabilisation as a function of time for a series of water/n-alkane/Triton X-100 oil-in-water emulsions. The time dependence of the emulsions was investigated using static light scattering, PFG-NMR and measurement of gross phase separation. By changing the chain length of the oil from hexane to tetradecane, an almost five orders of magnitude variation in emulsion lifetime could be achieved, while maintaining most of the other chemical and physical characteristics of the emulsions. Further, we show that while Ostwald ripening is the dominant destabilisation mechanism, two distinct regimes are evident. Initially, we observed an enhanced Ostwald ripening regime due to the presence of oil-swollen micelles in the aqueous continuum, that is a depletion flocculation mechanism is followed. The presence of oil-swollen micelles was confirmed using PFG-NMR. The micelles aid the gross oil transport between the discrete oil domains. Upon phase separation the oil-swollen micelles are predominantly removed from the emulsion along with the excess water resulting in a concomitant reduction in the ripening rate, producing the more general Ostwald ripening cubic dependence of droplet radius as a function of time for the lower molecular weight oils. The oils with higher molecular weight (decane and above), however, were observed to switch over to destabilisation via creaming. PFG-NMR was shown to be a powerful technique to fully probe emulsion microstructure as a function of time with droplet size and spacing being directly obtained from the data.     

Gels of shape-persistent macrocycles: the role of the interior

The aggregation of shape-persistent macrocycles with an empty cavity, an undecyldiether strand and a tetraethylene glycol strand leads in all cases to a macroscopic gelation of the solvent. However, the gelation temperatures are fine-tuned by the intraannular substituents.     

The Vliegenthart-Lekkerkerker relation: the case of the Mie-fluids

The Vliegenthart-Lekkerkerker relation for the second virial coefficient value at the critical temperature found in the work of Vliegenthart and Lekkerkerker [J. Chem. Phys. 112, 5364 (2000)] is discussed in connection with the scale invariant mean-field approach proposed by Kulinskii and Bulavin [J. Chem. Phys. 133, 134101 (2010)]. We study the case of the Mie-class potentials, which is widely used in simulations of the phase equilibrium of the fluids. It is shown that due to the homogeneity property of the Mie-class potentials it is possible to connect the loci of the fluids with these model potentials in different dimensions.     

On the nature of the 'heterogeneous' catalyst: nickel-on-charcoal

Results from aromatic aminations and Kumada couplings, together with spectroscopic analyses (TEM, EDX, ICP-AES, React-IR), reveal that catalysis using nickel-on-charcoal (Ni/C) is most likely of a homogeneous rather than heterogeneous nature. In the course of a reaction with Ni/C, nickel bleed from the support was calculated to be as high as 78%. However, the existence of an equilibrium for this homogeneous species between nickel located inside vs outside the pore system of charcoal strongly favors the former, thus leaving only traces of metal detectable in solution. This accounts for virtually complete recovery of nickel on the charcoal following filtration of a reaction mixture and allows for recycling of the catalyst. TEM and EDX data were used to explain different reactivity profiles of Ni/C, which depended upon the method of reduction used to convert Ni(II)/C to Ni(0) as well as the level of nickel loading on the support.     

Bridging the Gap: Understanding the Chemistry of CMP

This laboratory exercise will expose upper-level undergraduate students to the aspect of chemistry known as Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP). CMP is used for the fabrication of computer chips and memory devices. Students investigate a representative slurry that is used for copper-based advanced integrated-circuit processes. More specifically, students monitor the generation of OH through the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide in the presence of a metal/amino acid complex, which is used as a catalyst. This introduces students to the fundamentals of OH trapping and provides practice in the techniques used for kinetic rate determination. The kinetics data obtained for these systems will be correlated with the static dissolution rate of Cu metal upon exposure to various control and hydroxyl radical generating solutions.     

Erratum to: Glycosylation in flow: effect of the flow rate and type of the mixer

Russian Chemical Bulletin - To the article “Glycosylation in flow: effect of the flow rate and type of the mixer,” by I. V. Myachin, A. V. Orlova, and L. O. Kononov, Vol. 68, No. 11,...     

Polyepoxide-water interactions: Influence of the chemical structure of the network

We have investigated the influence of the chemical structure of polyepoxide networks on the sorption behaviour and water-induced changes of viscoelastic and mechanical properties. The β relaxation was found to be unaffected by the presence of adsorbed water for an anhydride and an aromatic amine based polyepoxide. The anhydride based network shows better behaviour in a water environment than the aromatic amine based network in terms of plasticisation, reversibility of the degradation and loss of mechanical properties. This has been attributed to (i) a smaller crosslinking density, leading to a smaller specific volume in the glassy state and thus a smaller water uptake and (ii) a strong interaction between water and tertiary amines in epoxide-aromatic amine networks. This interaction, probably of electrostatic nature, would result from the delocalization of the doublet of the nitrogen atom. The results are critically compared to the literature on aliphatic amine based polyepoxides, where the dependence of the β relaxation on the water content is proposed to be related to the electron-donating ability of the aliphatic chain.     

Resonance structures of the amide bond: the advantages of planarity

Delocalization indexes based on magnitudes derived from electron-pair densities are demonstrated to be useful indicators of electron resonance in amides. These indexes, based on the integration of the two-electron density matrix over the atomic basins defined through the zero-flux condition, have been calculated for a series of amides at the B3LYP/6-31+G* level of theory. These quantities, which can be viewed as a measure of the sharing of electrons between atoms, behave in concordance with the traditional resonance model, even though they are integrated in Bader atomic basins. Thus, the use of these quantities overcomes contradictory results from analyses of atomic charges, yet keeps the theoretical appeal of using nonarbitrary atomic partitions and unambiguously defined functions such as densities and pair densities. Moreover, for a large data set consisting of 24 amides plus their corresponding rotational transition states, a linear relation was found between the rotational barrier for the amide and the delocalization index between the nitrogen and oxygen atoms, indicating that this parameter can be used as an ideal physical-chemical indicator of the electron resonance in amides.     

Copper-containing dendromesogens: the influence of the metal on the mesomorphism

The synthesis and liquid crystalline behaviour of the first and second generations of a dendrimeric structure based on poly(propyleneimine)(DAB-dendr(NH₂)_x) are reported. 4-(4-n-Alkoxybenzoyloxy)salicylaldehydes are used as mesogenic moieties attached at the peripheral amino groups of the dendrimers giving rise to dendromesogens with four and eight mesogenic branches. From these dendromesogens, considered as organic ligands, were prepared six metal-containing dendrimers which incorporate two or four copper atoms in their structures. All the dendrimeric ligands and three of the metal-containing dendrimers exhibit liquid crystalline properties which were studied by optical microscopy, DSC, X-ray diffraction and EPR spectroscopy.