Engineering of UV‐absorbing polypropylene films containing poly(2‐(2′‐hydroxy‐5′‐methacryloxyethylphenyl)‐2H‐benzotriazole) nanoparticles

Ultraviolet‐absorbing nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by emulsion co‐polymerization of the vinylic monomer 2‐(2′‐hydroxy‐5′‐methacryloxyethylphenyl)‐2H‐benzotriazole (Norbloc?, NB) with the crosslinking monomer divinylbenzene. The effect of total monomer, surfactant, crosslinker, and initiator concentrations on the size and size distribution of the formed NPs was elucidated. The NB monomer and the formed polyNB (PNB) NPs of 19 ± 2 nm were then incorporated into polypropylene (PP) films by melt‐compounding technique by using cast film extrusion. Increasing the PNB NP concentrations integrated within the PP films decreased their UV transmittance. Migration of the UV absorbing PNB NPs from the PP films was not observed during 3 years of storage at room temperature or while exposure to extreme conditions. Under the same conditions, a significant migration was observed for the NB monomer‐containing films. Overall, the PNB NP‐containing films are clear and transparent, although the haze was affected by the addition of NB and PNB NPs. Moreover, the films have good mechanical properties and UV‐blocking quality. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Novel poly(ethylene glycol) monomers bearing diverse functional groups

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) mono methacrylate ester (MAPEG) has been used, through a variety of reactions, to form several novel monomers, bearing both a polymerizable handle and various functional groups. These new compounds may be conjugated to biomolecules via amine, acid, or thiol moieties or they may form dendrimers via the epoxide. In addition, polymerization of these monomers may result in functionalized nanoparticles and microparticles or coatings, thus altering the acid‐base or electrochemical properties of surfaces and particles. Full synthetic considerations, including interesting intermediates, are reported. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2010     

Preliminary Investigation on the Effect of Production Parameters on the Strength of Large Tablets

A case study of large tablet manufacturing in the chemical industry is presented. Since the tablets are much larger than the usual scale in the pharmaceutical industry, common practice that was developed mainly for pharmaceutical tablets could not be applied directly. Customer complaints concerning damaged tablets were the reason for this comprehensive study, which was aimed first at evaluating a testing method for process control, then to provide some hints for stabilizing the manufacturing process and for producing stronger tablets. Three test methods were evaluated: measuring compression and tension crush strengths and wear tests in a rotating drum. It was shown that the wear test provides sufficient results faster and easier than the other methods. By testing hundreds of tablets, produced in various batches, production parameters such as granule aging, surrounding humidity, tableting pressure and tablet aging were evaluated in order to provide stronger tablets. The strongest tablets were achieved by using fresh granules at very high humidity and compacting pressure and by allowing the tablets to age for at least 2 weeks.     

Recursive Conditional Moment Equations for Advective Transport in Randomly Heterogeneous Velocity Fields

Flow and transport parameters such as hydraulic conductivity, seepage velocity, and dispersivity have been traditionally viewed as well-defined local quantities that can be assigned unique values at each point in space-time. Yet in practice these parameters can be deduced from measurements only at selected locations where their values depend on the scale (support volume) and mode (instruments and procedure) of measurement. Quite often, the support of the measurements is uncertain and the data are corrupted by experimental and interpretive errors. Estimating the parameters at points where measurements are not available entails an additional random error. These errors and uncertainties render the parameters random and the corresponding flow and transport equations stochastic. The stochastic flow and transport equations can be solved numerically by conditional Monte Carlo simulation. However, this procedure is computationally demanding and lacks well-established convergence criteria. An alternative to such simulation is provided by conditional moment equations, which yield corresponding predictions of flow and transport deterministically. These equations are typically integro-differential and include nonlocal parameters that depend on more than one point in space-time. The traditional concept of a REV (representative elementary volume) is neither necessary nor relevant for their validity or application. The parameters are nonunique in that they depend not only on local medium properties but also on the information one has about these properties (scale, location, quantity, and quality of data). Darcy's law and Fick's analogy are generally not obeyed by the flow and transport predictors except in special cases or as localized approximations. Such approximations yield familiar-looking differential equations which, however, acquire a non-traditional meaning in that their parameters (hydraulic conductivity, seepage velocity, dispersivity) and state variables (hydraulic head, concentration) are information-dependent and therefore, inherently nonunique. Nonlocal equations contain information about predictive uncertainty, localized equations do not. We have shown previously (Guadagnini and Neuman, 1997, 1998, 1999a, b) how to solve conditional moment equations of steady-state flow numerically on the basis of recursive approximations similar to those developed for transient flow by Tartakovsky and Neuman (1998, 1999). Our solution yields conditional moments of velocity, which are required for the numerical computation of conditional moments associated with transport. In this paper, we lay the theoretical groundwork for such computations by developing exact integro-differential expressions for second conditional moments, and recursive approximations for all conditional moments, of advective transport in a manner that complements earlier work along these lines by Neuman (1993).     

Coulomb energy shifts of the ground states of A = 18 and A = 42 nuclei

This work evaluates the theory of Coulomb displacement energies of the ground states of ¹⁸Ne¹⁸O and ⁴²Ti⁴²Ca, with a view to making bounds on the possible violation of charge symmetry in the strong interaction. The theoretical uncertainties are found to be of ～8%, and the discrepancies between theory and experiment are much larger than the possible charge-violating potential being sought.     

An abstract version of a limit theorem of Szegö

The theory of factorization with respect to chains of orthogonal projections is used to deduce an abstract version of a well-known limit theorem of Szegö. The theory is then specialized to matrix Fredholm operators and finally to matrix Wiener-Hopf operators. The well-known continuous analogues of Kac and Achiezer emerge as special cases.     

Photoinduced Pyridine Cleavage-Closure in Viscous Polymer Solutions

We have found that photoinduced pyridine ring cleavage-closure occurs in polymeric viscous solution, because in certain polymer solutions, pyridine can serve as a photo-modulated crosslinker. We suggest this reaction as a way to control a polymer's optical properties. Irradiation of the system: poly(4-vinyl pyridine)/pyridine/water with 250-nm wavelength range leads to the appearance of a new absorption band centered at 360 nm, new red-shifted emission, and HOMO-LUMO band gap changes. The subsequent irradiation with 360 nm (the new absorption band maximum) leads to reversion almost to the initial stage. A main active product of the photoreaction is aldehyde enamine, which has two active groups: primary amine and aldehyde, which can associate with the polymer molecules to form a physical crosslinked supramolecular structure. We evaluated the activation energy of the pyridine ring cleavage and back reaction depending on the polymer/pyridine/water ratio and by changing the polymer structure. The activation energy of pyridine's ring cleavage in viscous polymeric solutions is in the range of 0.6–3.2 Kcal/mol. The activation energy of the back reaction is significantly lower and is in the range of 0.05–0.15Kcal/mole.     

Compression modes and the nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient

We review the current status of the nuclear matter (N=Z and no Coulomb interaction) incompressibility coefficient, K _nm , and describe the theoretical and the experimental methods used to determine K _nm from properties of compression modes in nuclei. In particular we consider the long standing problem of the conflicting results obtained for K _nm , deduced from experimental data on excitation cross sections for the isoscalar giant monopole resonance (ISGMR) and data for the isoscalar giant dipole resonance (ISGDR).