Factors that Influence the Kinetics of the Degradation of Poly(vinyl Chloride)

The degradation of five samples of PVC having different degrees of polymerization has been studied by a technique that permits a precise measurement of the rate of hydrogen chloride elimination as % HCl/min. All samples followed acceleratory kinetics at both low and high conversions. The conversion rate, which changed from the beginning to the end of a degradation, depended primarily upon the fraction of chains producing hydrogen chloride. The fraction of producing chains and the kinetic pattern were influenced by the presence of hydrogen chloride, the physical state of the sample, the previous degradation history, and the presence of intentionally added substances. Zipper kinetics permit the reproduction of kinetic data in terms of three parameters: k₁, the fraction of chains initiating per second, k₂, the fraction of a zip chain that zips per second, and k₃, an arbitrary parameter that accounts for residual hydrogen chloride after degradation has ceased.     

Influence of Monomer and Initiator Concentrations on the Simultaneous Grafting of Several Monomers onto Insoluble Collagen

Simultaneous grafting of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and methyl methacrylate (3:1 and 3:2 mole ratios) onto insoluble collagen with ceric ammonium nitrate as initiator was attempted with a view to optimizing conditions for the preparation of hydrogels. The influence of monomer and initiator concentrations on the grafting reactions was investigated. The grafting results are discussed in the light of grafting efficiency and percentage of grafting. They were found to be lower when the 3:1 mole ratio of monomers was used.     

Origin and impact of particle-to-particle variations in composition measurements with the nano-aerosol mass spectrometer

In the nano-aerosol mass spectrometer, individual particles in the 10–30 nm size range are trapped and irradiated with a high pulse energy laser beam. The laser pulse generates a plasma that disintegrates the particle into atomic ions, from which the elemental composition is determined. Particle-to-particle variations among the mass spectra are shown to arise from plasma energetics: Low ionization energy species are enhanced in some spectra while high ionization energy species are enhanced in others. These variations also limit the accuracy and precision of elemental analysis, with higher deviations generally observed when low ionization energy species are dominant in the mass spectrum. For standard datasets generated from nominally identical particles, it is shown that that the error associated with composition measurement is random and that averaging the spectra from a few tens of particles is sufficient for measuring the mole fractions of common elements to within about 10 % of the expected value. Averaging a greater number of particles offers limited improvement of the measurement precision but has the deleterious effect of degrading the measurement time-resolution, which is given by the time needed to obtain the required number of particle spectra for averaging. An internally mixed ambient particle dataset was found to give a similar result to the standard datasets, that is, the measured elemental composition converged to the average value after a few tens of particles were averaged.     

One-Pot Oxidation and Nitrosation of β-Alkanolamines with KMnNO4-NaNO2. A Convenient Preparation of β-Ketonitrosamines

The oxidation and nitrosation of β-alkanolamines to the corresponding β-ketonitrosamines is reported. The oxidation is carried out with potassium permanganate in acidic medium, followed by nitrosation of the protonated aminoketone, with sodium nitrite, to the corresponding β-ketonitrosamine.     

Cycloaddition of Chlorosulfonyl Isocyanate to 2H-Azirines: Formation of [2+2+2] Cycloadducts

Chlorosulfonyl isocyanata (CSI) reacts with 2H-azirines 1 a-c at -78°C to form [2+2+2] cycloadducts 3a-c and 4a-c. The tricyclic aziridine derivatives 4a-c undergo CSI extrusion reactions and subsequent oxidation to the corresponding pyrazines 5a-c. Structural identifications of 3a-c and 4a-c are based on ir, nmr and mass spectral data.     

A Convenient Synthesis of Hydrophenanthrenes the Synthesis of Ferrugindl and Xanthoperol

We wish to report an approach (equation 1) to hydrophenanthrenes which shows considerable promise of providing a general synthetic route for diterpenes, steroids, triterpenes, and tetraterpenes. Herein we illustrate the utility of this Friedel-Crafts type of procedure^3,6 by describing a synthesis of ferruginol (6) ⁷ and xanthoperol (8).⁸     

Fabrication and characterization of an irradiation facility for large-sample geometry

An irradiation facility consisting of a modified beam port shielding plug has been designed, fabricated built and characterized for use in irradiating non-standard sample geometries. The shielding plug features a graphite moderator at the core end with a hole, or “well” drilled of sufficient diameter and depth to accommodate an eight ounce (227 gram) sample bottle. Added shielding behind the graphite consists of castable neutron- and -gamma-ray shielding. The modified shielding plug can be removed relatively quickly from its irradiation position to minimize personnel exposures. It is mounted in close proximity to the Ohio State University Research Reactor reactor core to allow performance of high-sensitivity neutron activation analysis studies. Using the SAND-II unfolding code, the energy-dependent neutron flux has been measured in the sample irradiation position. When operating at 100 % power, the total flux is 3.9 × 10¹² n/cm²/s. Of this, 55 % is thermal (<0.5 eV), 23 % is epithermal (>0.5 eV, <0.5 MeV), and 22 % is “fast” (>0.5 MeV). This makes the facility suitable for neutron activation studies. Recently it has been used for irradiation of filter papers collected in a study of particulate air pollution in the form of atmospheric particulate matter in an urban environment.     

A Novel Cyclic Carbamate from the Acid-Catalyzed Reaction of D-Glucose and Urea

Abstract

The acid-catalyzed reaction of D-glucose with urea in a phenol-water solution has provided α-D-glucopyranosylamine 1,2-(cyclic carbamate) (1). The use of ¹H-¹³C correlated NMR spectroscopy involving indirectly-bonded hydrogens and carbons proved to be indispensable in determining the structure.     

Expressions for the Activity Coefficients and Osmotic Coefficients of Solutions of Electrolytes and Nonelectrolytes Based on the Hydration Model of Zavitsas

In two papers Zavitsas described a model for the thermodynamic properties of aqueous solutions of a single electrolyte or nonelectrolyte (Zavitsas, J Phys Chem B 105:7805–7817, 2001; J Solution Chem 39:301–317, 2010) in which he assumed that part of the water is so strongly bound to the solute that it can be considered as part of it, and thus only the remaining unbound water is considered to be the solvent. He showed that when the usual water mole fraction was replaced by the resulting mole fraction of unbound water, obtained by optimizing an effective hydration number, basically linear relations were obtained to fairly high molalities for the freezing temperature lowering, boiling temperature elevation, and the water activity/vapor pressure of water. However, Zavitsas only considered the properties of the solvent, not the solute. In this paper we derive the corresponding expressions for the activity coefficient of the solute for the usual molality scale based on 1 kg of water, for the modified molality scale based on 1 kg of unbound water, for the mole fraction scale based on the total number of moles of water, and for the modified mole fraction scale based on the number of moles of unbound water. These equations show that if the hydration number is larger than the stoichiometric ionization number of the electrolyte, then all four types of mean activity coefficients are predicted to always be >1 (nearly all hydration numbers reported by Zavitsas for electrolyte solutions are greater than the corresponding ionization numbers), which directly conflicts with extensive experimental and theoretical evidence that the mean activity coefficients of electrolytes in aqueous solutions always initially decrease below unity. In contrast, for nonelectrolyte solutions, the hydration model of Zavitsas gives more realistic values of the activity coefficients.