Crystallization of trans-1,4-polyisoprene and of hydrochlorinated segmented block copolymer derivatives from solution

Crystallization of trans-1,4-polyisoprene from the mixed solvent pair hexane/2-pentanone was carried out and the effects on the morphology of seeding and the solvent composition were studied. α-TPI lamellae obtained by crystallization from a single solvent, hexane, at 20°C and by mixed-solvent crystallization at 40°C were characterized by DSC, FTIR, and suspension epoxidation/C-13 NMR. Crystalline stem lengths of 14.5 and 18 and a fold length of 10 monomer units were found. Segmented block copolymers were prepared by reaction of TPI lamellae in acetone suspension with HCl at ?7°C. These products were dissolved in 2-pentanone and precipitated at 0°C. A lamellar morphology, the details of which depend on the TPI block length, was observed by SEM; both preparations showed sharp endotherms; and the FTIR was characteristic of a combination of amorphous TPI, amorphous hydrochlorinated TPI, and of either the β crystalline form or both the α and β forms for TPI depending on the sample.     

Genetic programming as an analytical tool for non-linear dielectric spectroscopy.

By modelling the non-linear effects of membranous enzymes on an applied oscillating electromagnetic field using supervised multivariate analysis methods, Non-Linear Dielectric Spectroscopy (NLDS) has previously been shown to produce quantitative information that is indicative of the metabolic state of various organisms. The use of Genetic Programming (GP) for the multivariate analysis of NLDS data recorded from yeast fermentations is discussed, and GPs are compared with previous results using Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Artificial Neural Nets (NN). GP considerably outperforms these methods, both in terms of the precision of the predictions and their interpretability.     

Untersuchung von Fetten und ?len.

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Chain folding in poly-trans-1,4-butadiene crystals grown from various solvents

Crystals of poly-trans-1,4-butadiene of uniform size have been grown from three solvents (n-heptane, methyl isobutyl ketone, and toluene) by using a minimum dissolution temeprature technique. The percentage of double bonds available for reaction in the crystals was determined by epoxidation in suspension; crystal thicknesses were measured by electron microscopy. These values were used to calculate the number of monomer units per fold. The number of available double bonds was found to increase with decreasing molecular weight, evidence for the presence of non-reentrant chains (cilia) at the crystal surfaces. The nature of the chain fold in poly-trans-1,4-butadiene crystals is discussed.     

Plastic deformation of poly-4-methylpentene-1 crystals

The plastic deformation of poly-4-methylpentene-1 (P4MP1) crystals on a unidirectionally drawn substrate has been investigated by electron microscopy. In addition to cracks spanned by fibrils and buckling perpendicular to the stretch direction, both features found in deformation studies of other polymers, a unique slip mechanism leading to sectorization of P4MP1 crystals is observed; deformation was also found to occur by means of localized lamellar thinning. The exact type of plastic deformation occurring in P4MP1 crystals is found to depend on the orientation of the lamellae with respect to the tensile axis. Some evidence for a periodicity on the fibrils studied is given.