Liquid–gas critical phenomena under confinement: small-angle neutron scattering studies of CO2 in aerogel

Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) is a well-established technique for investigating the behavior of confined binary liquid solutions, as it can probe the correlation length and susceptibility in pores on length scales 1 – 100 nm. We applied SANS to explore the influence of confinement on critical behavior of an individual fluid carbon dioxide (CO₂) in a highly porous aerogel. The results demonstrate that quenched disorder induced by aerogel significantly depresses density fluctuations. Despite the negligible volume occupied by aerogel (< 4%), the macroscopic phase separation of confined CO₂ into coexisting liquid and gaseous phases is suppressed and below the critical temperature of the bulk fluid frozen methastable microdomains are formed. Experimental data show that critical adsorption is as important as the effect of confinement in defining the behavior of confined fluids.     

A finiteness result for Heegaard splittings

In this paper we show that for a given 3-manifold and a given Heegaard splitting there are finitely many preferred decomposing systems of 3g−3 disjoint essential disks. These are characterized by a combinatorial criterion which is a slight strengthening of Casson-Gordon's rectangle condition. This is in contrast to fact that in general there can exist infinitely many such systems of disks which satisfy just the Casson-Gordon rectangle condition.     

A Promising MoO_x-based Catalyst for n-Heptane Isomerization

The increasing demand for higher-octane gasoline and the regulations limiting the amount of aromatics in the fuel motivate the interest in catalytic isomerization of n-alkanes. In the last ten years, transition metal oxides or oxycarbides based on molybdenum or tungstate have attracted much attention due to their high activity and isomerization selectivity compared to the conventional bifunctional supported platinum catalyst and high resistance to sulphur and nitrogen catalyst poisons1-5. Ma…     

Ultraslow phonon-assisted collapse of tubular image states

We predict ultraslow collapse of “tubular image states” (TIS) on material surfaces. TIS are bound Rydberg-like electronic states formed at large distances (∼30 nm) from the surfaces of suspended circularly-symmetric nanowires, such as metallic C nanotubes. The states are formed in potential wells, resulting from a combination of the TIS-electron attraction to image charges in the nanotube and its centrifugal repulsion, caused by spinning around the tube. We demonstrate that TIS can collapse on the tube surface by passing their angular momentum l to circularly polarized flexural phonons excited in the tube. Our analysis shows that for highly detached TIS with l ? 6 the relaxation lifetimes are of the order of 10 ns-1 μs, while for l < 6 these lifetimes are reduced by several orders of magnitude.     

The preparation of 2-iodoamides from glucals and their further transformations into oxazolines

2-Deoxy-2-iodo-glycosylamides have been prepared from a variety of protected d-glucals by their reaction with N-iodosuccinimide and amides. Benzyl protected 2-iodoamides, when treated with sodium hydride and 15-crown-5, gave stable C1 N-linked 2-glycooxazolines as the major products. Silyl protected 2-iodoamides afforded the C1 O-linked 2-glycooxazolines; presumably by the rearrangement of unstable N-acylaziridine intermediates.     

Crystallization and morphology of poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) blends. I. Spherulitic morphology and growth by polarized microscopy

The development of the poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) morphology in the presence of already existent poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) spherulites was studied by two‐stage solidification with two separate crystallization temperatures. PVDF formed irregular dendrites at lower temperatures and regular, banded spherulites at elevated temperatures. The transition temperature of the spherulitic morphology from dendrites to regular, banded spherulites increased with increasing PVDF content. A remarkable amount of PHB was included in the PVDF dendrites, whereas PHB was rejected into the remaining melt from the banded spherulites. When PVDF crystallized as banded spherulites, PHB could consequently crystallize only around them, if at all. In contrast, PHB crystallized with a common growth front, starting from a defined site in the interfibrillar regions of volume‐filling PVDF dendrites. It formed by itself dendritic spherulites that included a large number of PVDF spherulites. For blends with a PHB content of more than 80 wt %, for which the PVDF dendrites were not volume‐filling, PHB first formed regular spherulites. Their growth started from outside the PVDF dendrites but could later interpenetrate them, and this made their own morphology dendritic. These PHB spherulites melted stepwise because the lamellae inside the PVDF dendrites melted at a lower temperature than those from outside. This reflected the regularity of the two fractions of the lamellae because that of those inside the dendrites of PVDF was controlled by the intraspherulitic order of PVDF, whereas that from outside was only controlled by the temperature and the melt composition. The described morphologies developed without mutual nucleating efficiency of the components. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 873–882, 2003     

2-乙酰氨基-3,4,6-三乙酰葡萄糖的合成

细菌内毒素(ＬＰＳ)是革兰氏阳性阴性菌细胞外膜层的主要成分,由其引起的革兰氏阴性杆菌脓度症和休克是导致战创伤病人死亡的主要原因之一。而从类脂Ａ(ＬｉｐｉｄＡ)的结构出发,以非肽类物质拮抗内毒素受体ＣＤ-14为治疗手段的研究在国外刚刚起步。2-乙酰氨基-3,4,6-三乙酰葡萄糖是合成ＬｉｐｉｄＡ结构类似物的重要中间体[1,2]。它的合成一般是通过氨基葡萄糖五乙酸酯的选择性水解[3-6]脱去一个乙酰基得到。氨基葡萄糖五乙酸酯是通过氨基葡萄糖的乙酰化反应得到的,由于氨基葡萄糖不稳定,一般是用氨基葡萄糖的盐酸盐作为起始原料。由于…     

Spectral decomposition of an elementary 3-fermion 2-body operator

The eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of an elementary 3-fermion 2-body operator 3P²_g∧I¹A³∑_{1≤i≤j≤3}P²_g(i, j)A³ acting on a 3-particle antisymmetric finite-dimensional Hilbert space have been found. Here P_g² denotes the projection operator onto a 2-particle antisymmetric function g², while A³ denotes the 3-particle antisymmetrizing operator.     

Synthesis and properties of the nanocomposite of zink oxide and poly(amic acid)

The composite comprised of zinc oxide quantum dots and poly(amic acid) (PAAc) was prepared and studied by X-rays diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, light scattering, UV absorbance and UV fluorescence. The UV absorbance of the ZnO/PAAc composite was found to be much larger than that of its components taken separately. The fluorescence of the ZnO/PAAc composite was found to be shifted to longer wavelengthes in comparison with pure ZnO. The presence of the dopant dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid was found to affect the observed fluorescence.