Transetherification polycondensation: The roles of the catalyst,monomer structure,and polymerization conditions

A detailed study of the novel melt transetherification polycondensation process, which was recently developed in our laboratory, is presented. The efficacy of different catalysts, such as p‐toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA), camphorsulfonic acid, and their pyridinium salts, was examined. The pyridinium salts, especially pyridinium camphorsulfonate (PCS), outperformed PTSA both in terms of the polymer molecular weights (the polydispersity) and the extent of discoloration of the polymer. The evolution of the molecular weight with the polymerization time was monitored with two different catalysts, PTSA and PCS, and these studies demonstrated that, while PTSA yielded polymers with a broad molecular weight distribution, the use of PCS curtailed possible side reactions that led to this broadening. Model reactions suggested that one possible reason for this broadening could be the formation of macrocyclics facilitated by an ether–ether exchange reaction, which was shown to occur much more rapidly when PTSA was used. A further interesting and rather unprecedented feature, which became apparent while the effect of the acid–catalyst concentration was being examined, was the dual role played by the acid, which acted both beneficially as a catalyst and detrimentally, defunctionalizing the chain end and terminating polymer growth. This conclusion was based on the observed decrease in the molecular weight of the polymer at very high catalyst concentrations, which suggested that there existed an optimum catalyst concentration at which a balance was struck between the molecular weight of the polymer formed and the polymerization time. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 102–111, 2004     

ϒ′ (10.01) resonance parameters

On the basis of some exactly solvable models we suggest that the Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation series for the energy eigenvalue may have nothing to do with the corresponding exact value in case the vacuum expectation value of the system changes discontinuously, i.e. the system undergoes first-order phase transition.     

Effect of non-magnetic impurities on the observation of superconducting gap excitations by raman scattering

The effect of small concentrations of non-magnetic substitutional impurities (characterized by changes in mass, nearest neighbour force constants and local electron-phonon interaction) on the observability of superconducing (sc) gap excitations in 2H-NbSe₂ by Raman scattering is considered within the theoretical framework of Balseiro and Falicov (bf). The phonon self-energy when evaluated forq=0 using the Einstein oscillator model for the host phonons is seen to have a pole corresponding to the impurity mode besides the gap excitation one around 2Δ previously obtained bybf. A splitting of the impurity mode into two in thesc state is predicted. An enhancement occurs in the strength of thesc gap excitation peak whenever it is close to the impurity mode. The data from the experiments of Sooryakumar, Klein and Frindt on impure samples of 2H-NbSe₂ are discussed in the light of the present calculation. Preliminary results of this paper were presented by one of us (snb) at the International Conference on Phonon Physics at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, in August-September 1981.     

Ethyl 6‐acetylamino‐6,7‐dihydro‐5H‐dibenzo[a,c]cycloheptene‐6‐carboxylate

The title compound, C₂₀H₂₁NO₃, is a derivative of Aib (α‐­aminoisobutyric acid) and is cyclized at the C^α position by bi­phenyl rings. The seven‐membered ring possesses C2 symmetry. The C^α cyclization causes the backbone to assume a helical conformation in the crystal structure. The packing of the mol­ecules is stabilized by intermolecular C—H?O, C—H?π and N—H?O hydrogen bonds.     

Strain-tunable band gap in graphene/h-BN hetero-bilayer

Using full-potential density functional calculations within local density approximation (LDA), we predict that mechanically tunable band-gap and quasi-particle-effective-mass are realizable in graphene/hexagonal-BN hetero-bilayer (C/h-BN HBL) by application of in-plane homogeneous biaxial strain. While providing one of the possible reasons for the experimentally observed gap-less pristine-graphene-like electronic properties of C/h-BN HBL, which theoretically has a narrow band-gap, we suggest a schematic experiment for verification of our results which may find applications in nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS), nano opto-mechanical systems (NOMS) and other nano-devices based on C/h-BN HBL.     

Wavelet packets associated with nonuniform multiresolution analyses

A multiresolution analysis was defined by Gabardo and Nashed for which the translation set is a discrete set which is not a group. We construct the associated wavelet packets for such an MRA. Further, from the collection of dilations and translations of the wavelet packets, we characterize the subcollections which form orthonormal bases for L²(R).     

Fission fragment angular distributions in 16O+181Ta

Time of flight and energy of fission fragments were measured using pulsed beam. Fission fragment mass and energy integrated angular distributions were extracted. Fission fragment anisotropy was explained in the framework of saddle point model.