Facile and versatile synthesis of rod‐coil poly(3‐hexylthiophene)‐based block copolymers by nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization

A well‐defined and monofunctional poly(3‐hexylthiophene)‐based (P3HT) macroinitiator has been obtained through a clean, simple, and an efficient multistep synthesis process. The macroinitiator is obtained via intermolecular radical 1,2‐addition onto an ω‐acrylate‐terminated P3HT macromonomer. In a second step, well‐defined rod‐coil block copolymers were obtained by nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization (NMRP) using the so‐called Blocbuilder^®. The polymerization was found to be controlled with various monomers such as styrene, isoprene, 4‐vinylpyridine, or methyl acrylate. This process constitutes a very promising way to obtain versatile and clean materials for organic electronics. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2012     

Synthesis and mesogenic properties of four series of polyesters derived from dicarboxylic and dihydroxylic aromatic monomers

Some members of four series of polyesters were synthesized by the direct polycondensation of two types of dicarboxylic acids (4,4′-dicarboxy-α,ω-diphenoxyalkanes and 4,4′-dicarboxy-α,ω-dibenzoyloxyalkanes) with two types of bisphenols (4,4′-dihydroxy-α,ω-diphenoxyalkanes and 4,4′-dihydroxy-α,ω-dibenzoyloxyalkanes) using tosyl chloride in pyridine in the presence of N, N-dimethylformamide. The ¹H-NMR spectra of the polymers synthesized showed that these polymers have an ordenated structure. The mesogenic properties of these polymers were studied by optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Many of the polymers show nematic mesomorphism.     

New methods in predictive metabolism

Molecular Diversity -     

Magnetic and structural properties of as-milled and heat-treated bcc-Fe70Cu30 alloy

A ferromagnetic solid solution with a nominal atomic composition Fe₇₀Cu₃₀ and a body-centered structure has been obtained by high-energy ball milling. The decomposition of the system is monitored by X-ray diffraction (XRD), magnetic measurements and Mössbauer spectroscopy. According to XRD, for healing temperatures below 723 K there is only a bcc phase in the material, while for heating temperatures above 723 K a new phase, with a fcc structure, appears, suggesting that the solid solution has decomposed into bcc-Fe and fcc-Cu. However, the magnetic behavior observed during the decomposition process indicates that this evolution is more complex than the simple decomposition into the equilibrium phases. This behavior can be summarized in two points: (1) a decrease in the magnetization at 5 K, and (2) drastic changes in the coercive field with the thermal treatment, soft magnetic behavior for the material in the as-milled state, superparamagnetism for low heating temperatures and a hardening of the material heated to above 723 K, for which the values of the coercive field at room temperature are several times higher than those for the as-milled sample. The Mössbauer spectroscopy performed at room temperature shows that for the heat-treated samples the Fe atoms are in two different phases: a ferromagnetic phase, which evolves to bcc-Fe, and a paramagnetic phase.     

Regular orbits of hall π-subgroups

partially supported by DGICYT     

General theory of domain decomposition: Indirect methods

According to a general theory of domain decomposition methods (DDM), recently proposed by Herrera, DDM may be classified into two broad categories: direct and indirect (or Trefftz‐Herrera methods). This article is devoted to formulate systematically indirect methods and apply them to differential equations in several dimensions. They have interest since they subsume some of the best‐known formulations of domain decomposition methods, such as those based on the application of Steklov‐Poincaré operators. Trefftz‐Herrera approach is based on a special kind of Green's formulas applicable to discontinuous functions, and one of their essential features is the use of weighting functions which yield information, about the sought solution, at the internal boundary of the domain decomposition exclusively. A special class of Sobolev spaces is introduced in which boundary value problems with prescribed jumps at the internal boundary are formulated. Green's formulas applicable in such Sobolev spaces, which contain discontinuous functions, are established and from them the general framework for indirect methods is derived. Guidelines for the construction of the special kind of test functions are then supplied and, as an illustration, the method is applied to elliptic problems in several dimensions. A nonstandard method of collocation is derived in this manner, which possesses significant advantages over more standard procedures. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 296–322, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/num.10008     

Effect of disorder on the electronic structure of the double perovskite Sr2FeMoO6

Recently, Sr₂FeMoO₆ has been established as a new colossal magnetoresistance material with substantial low-field magnetoresistance at room temperature and has attracted much attention in the double perovskite family. This material always appears with a certain degree of miss-site disorder where Fe and Mo interchange their positions. Using renormalized perturbation expansion, we calculate the density of states and determine the variation of the critical temperature in the low disorder regime.     

Application of TG/FTIR to the study of the regeneration process of husy and HZSM5 zeolites

The effect of regeneration conditions on the composition of the gases evolved during the catalytic pyrolysis of low density (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) with HUSY and HZSM5 catalysts has been analysed by the TG/FTIR technique. When regenerated HUSY was employed, the evolution of the gases obtained was similar to that with fresh HUSY, indicating that the regeneration treatment did not affect its properties. Nevertheless with HZSM5, as the regeneration temperature was higher, the composition of the gases gradually became more similar to that evolved in the thermal process.