Sorption and diffusion of water vapor in polyimide films

Sorption and diffusion of water vapor are investigated gravimetrically for polyimide films. The activity dependence of the solubility and diffusion coefficients, S and D, respectively, is classified under four types: (1) constant S and D type, (2) dual-mode sorption and transport type, (3) dual-mode type followed by a deviation due to a plasticization effect at high vapor activity, and (4) constant S and D type followed by a deviation due to water cluster formation at high activity. For the dual-mode type, the Henry's law component is much larger than the Langmuir component except at low activity, and therefore deviation in behavior from the first type is small. S is larger for polyimides with higher content of polar groups such as carbonyl, carboxyl, and sulfonyl. D is larger for polyimides with a higher fraction of free space, with some exceptions. The polyimide from 3,3′,4,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride and dimethyl-3,7-diaminodibenzothiophene-5, 5-dioxide belongs to the third type and displays both large S and large D. The polyimide from 2,2-bis(3,4-dicarboxyphenyl) hexafluoropropane dianhydride and 4,4′-oxydianiline belongs to the fourth type, and has the largest D but rather small S because of the hydrophobic C(CF₃)₂ groups. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Lewis acid mediated claisen-type rearrangement of aryl dienyl ethers

In the presence of BF₃·.OEt₂, aryl dienyl ethers were rearranged under mild conditions to afford dienyl phenols in good yields.     

Experimental examination of the hypothesis of local determinability in the plastic deformation of metals

Ilyushin's general plasticity theory expressed in a vector space corresponding to the deviatoric tensor space is available in formulating precise stress-strain relations of inelastic deformations by incorporating the deformation history of metals under complex loadings. In this case, the hypothesis of local determinability proposed by Lensky (1960) is useful for determining the explicit form of the stress-strain relation. In the present paper, the hypothesis is discussed by using not only data obtained by an experiment in which the history effect on the succeeding deformation is clearly estimated, but also data described in previous work. As the result, the hypothesis of local determinability has been confirmed to hold with high accuracy in every case.     

Dual mechanisms for the fragmentation of 1-benzoylbenzotriazole upon electron impact

The electron impact induced fragmentation of 1-benzoylbenzotriazole has been studied by ¹³C labelling experiments. It has been found that the loss of CO from the [M ? N₂]⁺˙ ions proceeds by two routes; about 78% of the ions decompose via the molecular ions of the corresponding thermal fragmentation product, 2-phenylbenzoxazole, and 22% via those of the corresponding photochemical fragmentation product, 6-phenanthridone.     

Group theoretical treatment of the planar internal rotation problem in (HF)2

The HF dimer is believed to exhibit an internal rotation tunneling process between two planar but nonlinear equilibrium configurations, during which tunneling the roles of the hydrogen-bonded and the free hydrogen atom are interchanged. This process can be represented schematically with labeled atoms as H_lF_aH₂F_b ? F_aH_lF_bH₂, and gives rise to a permutation-inversion group G₄ containing four operations. In the present work the vibration-rotation-tunneling problem in (HF)₂ is treated group theoretically in three ways: (i) by allowing tunneling only through a trans planar C_2h intermediate, (ii) by allowing tunneling only through a cis planar C_2v intermediate, and (iii) by considering the trans and cis tunneling processes both to occur, though not necessarily with the same probability. The molecular symmetry groups used for these treatments are (i) the point group C_2h, (ii) the point group C_2v, and (iii) a double group, which might be thought of as $\text{G}{}_4{}^2\text{= C}{}_{\mathrm{2h}}{}^2\text{= C}{}_{\mathrm{2v}}{}^2$. Nonplanar tunneling paths are not considered, since the internal axis method (IAM) coordinate system used here cannot easily be adapted to nonplanar internal rotation motions in this molecule. Various-details of energy level diagrams, symmetry species for operators, selection rules for spectroscopic transitions, and statistical weights are presented for the (HF)₂ tunneling problem, as well as some speculation on the general question of when point groups, permutation-inversion groups, or double groups are preferable for treating large-amplitude vibrational motion problems.     

Water content distribution in a polymer electrolyte membrane for advanced fuel cell system with liquid water supply

To better understand the operation of a new fuel cell design, we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the water content distribution in a polymer electrolyte membrane under fuel cell operation with and without a supply of liquid water. The supply of liquid water to the membrane improved the cell performance by increasing the water content in the membrane and thus reducing the electrical resistance of the membrane. The study also showed that MRI is a promising method to investigate the distribution of water in the membrane of a fuel cell under operating conditions.     

Skyrmions from instantons inside domain walls

Some years ago, Atiyah and Manton described a method to construct approximate Skyrmion solutions from Yang-Mills instantons. Here we present a dynamical realization of this construction using domain walls in a five-dimensional gauge theory. The non-Abelian gauge symmetry is broken in each vacuum but restored in the core of the domain wall, allowing instantons to nestle inside the wall. We show that the world volume dynamics of the wall is given by the Skyrme model, including the four-derivative term, and the instantons appear as domain wall Skyrmions.