Phase state stabilization of ammonium nitrate for creating an oxidizing agent for smokeless gas-generating formulations yielding no toxic combustion products

Methods for phase stabilization of ammonium nitrate were sought for in order to considerably expand the application area of this oxidizing agent in various-purpose self-combustible formulations, including that in a new generation of gas-generating formulations for automobile air bags. New methods for stabilization of ammonium nitrate were studied and, in particular, a search was made for organic compounds that can stabilize ammonium nitrate even at their low content. The mechanism of phase state stabilization of ammonium nitrate by compounds of this kind was examined.     

Temperature effects on surface activity and application in oxidation of toluene derivatives of CTAB-SDS with KMnO4

The γ_cmc values of CTAB-SDS decrease from 63.67 mN/m at 10‡C to 36.38 mN/m at 90‡C, slightly lower than those of either CTAB or SDS. Correspondingly, the CMC of CTAB-SDS decreases almost by half. The increase of surface activity of CTAB-SDS can be attributed to the relatively weak electrostatic interaction at high temperature, which is supported by the increase of solubility of CTAB-SDS with rise in temperature. Catalytic effect on oxidation of toluene derivatives with potassium permanganate follows the order CTAB-SDS > SDS > CTAB. This is not caused by the dissociative effect of CTAB-SDS with low surface activity at low temperature, as seen from the fact that almost all oxidative products can be retrieved for different toluene derivatives and surfactants by mimicking the conditions of reaction. In the emulsifications of toluene derivatives at 90‡C, the time that turbid water layers of surfactant solutions take to become clear is the same as that of the catalytic effect on oxidation of toluene derivatives. Thus, it can be inferred that surfactants can improve the oxidation yields of toluene derivatives by increasing the contact between two reacting phases.     

Carbon adsorbents for the sorpting and concentrating nobel metals

Kinetic, sorption and selectivity properties of commercial adsorbents are improved by adding petroleum residues (tar asphaltene concentrates) 13% of whole mass. Obtained adsorbents can be used for selective extraction of nobel metals from multicomponent polymetallic solutions of heavy metals and fro sewages purification for removing arsenic.     

Rigidity and flexibility of virtual polytopes

All 3-dimensional convex polytopes are known to be rigid. Still their Minkowski differences (virtual polytopes) can be flexible with any finite freedom degree. We derive some sufficient rigidity conditions for virtual polytopes and present some examples of flexible ones. For example, Bricard's first and second flexible octahedra can be supplied by the structure of a virtual polytope.     

Micromachining of circular ring microstructure by femtosecond laser pulses

In this paper, integration of interference phenomenon into femtosecond laser micromachining was reported as the femtosecond laser pulses were reshaped spatially to perform ablation. The generation of circular interference pattern was demonstrated by overlapping infrared femtosecond laser pulses. The interference pattern was subsequently focused on a copper substrate to ablate microstructures of concentric circular rings. The present technique is expected to open up new applications in the areas of rapid fabrication of micro-Fresnel lenses, hybrid microlenses and lens arrays.     

Character of the thermal motion of water molecules according to the data on quasielastic incoherent scattering of slow neutrons

The paper discusses the applicability of quasi-crystalline approximation to describing the thermal motion of water molecules in their normal and supercooled states. The problem is subjected to the critical analysis of experimental data on incoherent scattering of slow neutrons based on theories developed by Singwi-Sjolander [1] and Oskotsky [2] modified to duly take into account the limited applicability range of diffusion approximation. The applicability conditions of quasi-crystalline approximation are shown to be consistently satisfied only when water is in supercooled state and within a narrow temperature range above the melting temperature.     

Approximate inverse computation using Frobenius inner product

Parallel preconditioners are presented for the solution of general linear systems of equations. The computation of these preconditioners is achieved by orthogonal projections related to the Frobenius inner product. So, min_M∈??∥AM?I∥ _F and matrix M₀∈?? corresponding to this minimum (?? being any vectorial subspace of ??_n(?)) are explicitly computed using accumulative formulae in order to reduce computational cost when subspace ?? is extended to another one containing it. Every step, the computation is carried out taking advantage of the previous one, what considerably reduces the amount of work. These general results are illustrated with the subspace of matrices M such that AM is symmetric. The main application is developed for the subspace of matrices with a given sparsity pattern which may be constructed iteratively by augmenting the set of non‐zero entries in each column. Finally, the effectiveness of the sparse preconditioners is illustrated with some numerical experiments. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.