A New Method for the Syntiiesis of 1-Aryl Phthalazines

A simple versatile method for the conversion of 1 -aroyl-2-(substituted benzylidene)-hydrazines to 1-aryl-phthalazines using polyphosphate ester (PPE) is described.     

Increased porous morphology and thermal degradation of electron beam-irradiated PVDF-HFP/LiCLO4 polymer electrolyte

The effect of 8?MeV energy electron beam radiation at 40, 80 and 120?kGy dosage on surface morphology and thermal properties of lithium perchlorate-doped poly (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) polymer electrolyte films have been studied. The field emission scanning electron microscopic image shows small-porous structured morphology for unirradiated film, but it changed drastically into large and deep porous structure as well as the size of spherulites is reduced for 120?kGy confirming the influence of irradiation on morphology. The atomic force microscope reveals the significantly changed surface roughness of unirradiated film from 116.8 to 123.4?nm with a hill-like pattern morphology for 120?kGy confirming the increased amorphousity after irradiation. The thermal study confirmed that the decrease in the melting point of unirradiated film 160.86–155.24°C for 120?kGy doses is attributed to the formation of defects by the chain scissioning process resulting in the degradation of polymer electrolytes at high dose.     

Magnetic properties of carbon nanosheets

Two-dimensional carbon nanosheets have been fabricated using inductively coupled radio frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition. The structural properties of the nanosheets have been characterised using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffractometer. The magnetisation of the samples was studied using vibrating sample magnetometer. The magnetisation of the nanosheets was found to be diamagnetic for fast synthesis processes (30 and 60 min). On the other hand, the nanosheets exhibited a weak ferromagnetic response for the slow (120 min) synthesis process. Energy dispersive spectrometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy confirmed that the magnetisation exhibited by the carbon nanosheets was an intrinsic property and that it was not due to contamination from the substrate. Raman spectroscopy studies revealed that the ferromagnetic carbon nanosheets have a higher ratio (1.20) of graphite peak (I _G) to disordered peak (I _D) than normally expected (0.75–0.90). Available data indicated that the magnetisation was due to the presence of structural disorders.     

A cost‐effective curvature calculation approach for interfacial flows on unstructured meshes

We present a simple and cost‐effective curvature calculation approach for simulations of interfacial flows on structured and unstructured grids. The interface is defined using volume fractions, and the interface curvature is obtained as a function of the gradients of volume fractions. The gradient computation is based on a recently proposed gradient recovery method that mimicks the least squares approach without the need to solve a system of equations and is quite easy to implement on arbitrary polygonal meshes. The resulting interface curvature is used in a continuum surface force formulation within the framework of a well‐balanced finite‐volume algorithm to simulate multiphase flows dominated by surface tension. We show that the proposed curvature calculation is at least as accurate as some of the existing approaches on unstructured meshes while being straightforward to implement on any mesh topology. Numerical investigations also show that spurious currents in stationary problems that are dependent on the curvature calculation methodology are also acceptably low using the proposed approach. Studies on capillary waves and rising bubbles in viscous flows lend credence to the ability of the proposed method as an inexpensive, robust, and reasonably accurate approach for curvature calculation and numerical simulation of multiphase flows.