SAXS and WAXD study of periodical structure for polyacrylonitrile fiber during coagulation

Small angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS) and wide angle X‐ray diffraction (WAXD) were adopted to investigate the formation and development of high order structure within polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor during coagulation. The scattering signal came from the microvoids and long period structure was separated reasonably by the analog computation method of decomposition of the one‐dimensional profile. Based on the established methodology, the statistic parameters of long period structure, such as length of the long period structure, crystalline region and amorphous region, were obtained by the analysis of correlation function. The results indicated that during the coagulation, the length of long period of the nascent coagulated fiber was 56.1 nm (meridional direction) and 35.6 nm (equatorial direction), respectively. The evolution of the long period during the coagulation was also discussed by combining WAXD data. With the processing of coagulation, the long period was decreased since the crystallinity increased. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of polymethyl methacrylate in cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries

A study of the Li₂FeSiO₄/C cathode material doped with Mn demonstrated that introduction of polymethyl methacrylate results in a substantial decrease in the particle size and increase in the specific surface area of the cathode material. Polymethyl methacrylate strongly improves the cyclic stability of the cathode material. The discharge capacity after the first cycle was 218 mA h g^–1, and that upon stabilization of the structure of the cathode material, 170 mA h g^–1.     

Structural Characterization of O‐ and C‐Glycosylating Variants of the Landomycin Glycosyltransferase LanGT2

The structures of the O‐glycosyltransferase LanGT2 and the engineered, C? C bond‐forming variant LanGT2S8Ac show how the replacement of a single loop can change the functionality of the enzyme. Crystal structures of the enzymes in complex with a nonhydrolyzable nucleotide‐sugar analogue revealed that there is a conformational transition to create the binding sites for the aglycon substrate. This induced‐fit transition was explored by molecular docking experiments with various aglycon substrates.