Detection of volatile organic compounds in the headspace above mold fungi by GC‐soft X‐radiation–based APCI‐MS

Mold fungi on malting barley grains cause major economic loss in malting and brewery facilities. Possible proxies for their detection are volatile and semivolatile metabolites. Among those substances, characteristic marker compounds have to be identified for a confident detection of mold fungi in varying surroundings. The analytical determination is usually performed through passive sampling with solid phase microextraction, gas chromatographic separation, and detection by electron ionization mass spectrometry (EI‐MS), which often does not allow a confident determination due to the absence of molecular ions. An alternative is GC‐APCI‐MS, generally, allowing the determination of protonated molecular ions. Commercial atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) sources are based on corona discharges, which are often unspecific due to the occurrence of several side reactions and produce complex product ion spectra. To overcome this issue, an APCI source based on soft X‐radiation is used here. This source facilitates a more specific ionization by proton transfer reactions only. In the first part, the APCI source is characterized with representative volatile fungus metabolites. Depending on the proton affinity of the metabolites, the limits of detection are up to 2 orders of magnitude below those of EI‐MS. In the second part, the volatile metabolites of the mold fungus species Aspergillus, Alternaria, Fusarium, and Penicillium are investigated. In total, 86 compounds were found with GC‐EI/APCI‐MS. The metabolites identified belong to the substance classes of alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, substituted aromatic compounds, terpenes, and sesquiterpenes. In addition to substances unspecific for the individual fungus species, characteristic patterns of metabolites, allowing their confident discrimination, were found for each of the 4 fungus species. Sixty‐seven of the 86 metabolites are detected by X‐ray–based APCI‐MS alone. The discrimination of the fungus species based on these metabolites alone was possible. Therefore, APCI‐MS in combination with collision induced dissociation alone could be used as a supervision method for the detection of mold fungi.     

Fabrication of microfluidic chip using micro‐hot embossing with micro electrical discharge machining mold

This study develops an improved method for generating aluminum mold inserts used in the replication of polymer‐based microfluidic chip. Since molding masters that are suitable for microfluidic chip replication must have features whose dimensions are of the order of tens to hundreds of microns, micro electrical discharge machining is employed herein to fabricate an aluminum mold insert of a microfluidic chip. The width and depth of the aluminum mold insert for the microfluidic chip are 61.50 and 49.61 µm, respectively. The surface roughness values of the microchannel and the sample reservoir in aluminum mold insert for the microfluidic chip are 53.9 and 34.3 nm, respectively. PMMA material is adopted as the molded microfluidic chip that is produced by micro‐hot embossing molding. The PMMA material can replicate the microchannel and sample reservoir very well when the aluminum mold insert is used in micro‐hot embossing molding. The results indicate that the most important parameter in the replication of molded microfluidic chip is the embossing pressure, which is also the most important parameter in determining the surface roughness of the molded microfluidic chip. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fabrication of optical waveguide devices using gas‐assisted UV micro/nanoimprinting with soft mold

Wavelength limitation and diffraction of light are the bottlenecks encountered in the production of structures by conventional lithography. Nano‐imprinting has been a potential process for mass production of nanometer structures at low cost. This paper reports an innovative process to replicate the ridge‐shaped microstructures on the silicon mold onto the photoresist using gas‐assisted pressing mechanism and soft mold. The microstructures on the silicon mold are replicated unto PC films. The soft mold is obtained by casting the PDMS with the PC film as templates, PDMS mold and UV‐curable photoresist are brought into contact, and are pressurized by gas and cured by UV‐light at the same time. After curing, structures for optical wave guilding can be obtained, In this process, through the control of gas pressure, the residual layer of the ridge‐shaped component for light guilding can eliminated. Etching is no longer needed to get rid of the residual layer. This process is effective for mass production for replication of microstructures at low cost. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of four ABS resins by thermal analysis

Four new commercial grades of rubber toughened ABS (acrylonitrile-butadienestyrene) terpolymers were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), mechanical analysis and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). These rubber toughened ABS molding compounds were manufactured by a new blended technology to yield resins which offer a broad range of flow properties and levels of toughness. Based upon DSC estimates of the level of rubber included, the four ABS compounds can be divided into two groups; the first has about 11 wt.% butadiene and the second near 18 wt.%. In addition, two styrene-acrylonitrile copolymers with different average molecular weights were found blended within each ABS group. By this blending process four resins are produced with impact strengths ranging from below three to near seven ft-lb in^–1. These analytical results show that a resin's impact strength is enhanced not only by increasing the level of rubber particles in a given ABS compound but also by raising the molecular weight of the SAN which is blended into the terpolymer.Dedicated to Professor Bernhard Wunderlich on the occasion of his 65th birthdayThe authors acknowledge useful discussions with L. L. Blyler, Jr., X. Quan and L. Shepherd and A. Hale for his scanning electron microscopy results. GPC results were carried out by Jordi Associates.     

Amorphous hydrogenated carbon coatings on IC packaging mold by ECR-CVD system

The surface properties of IC packaging molds such as anti-sticking, wear, and corrosion resistances can be improved by hard surface coating. In this study, Ti/TiN/TiCN/a-C:H thin film coatings were deposited on IC cavity bar molds in a hybrid PVD-ECR-CVD coating system. The structure of the a-C:H films was delineated by a function of bias voltages by Raman spectroscopy. Excellent adhesion and lower friction coefficients of a-C:H films were also assessed. According to the normal adhesion force measurement, a-C:H coating was superior to that of typical electroplated hard chromium (Ep-Cr). Performance evaluation showed that the a-C:H coating could increase the number of molding injections in IC package production lines by 216%.     

光学镜面复制技术的研究

光学镜面复制技术包括镀膜、胶合、脱模等工艺 ,这是一种通过压模的方法生产光学镜面的技术。一个镀好膜的高精度母模的光学面被复制到没有抛光过的复制件非光学表面上 ,母模和复制件之间的面形误差由胶粘剂补偿 ,通过脱模 ,可以得到一个镀好膜的由基体和胶粘剂组成的复制光学面。探讨了光学镜面复制技术的工艺方法 ,给出了所复制的球面、非球面、二次复制平面的干涉图和阴影图。     

Sub-microns period grating couplers fabricated by silicon mold

This paper describes a novel simple process suitable for fabrication of micro-periodic structure in optical waveguide. The mold was fabricated using electron beam lithography and fast atom beam etching. Sub-micron-scale patterns were transferred from silicon mold to polymer layer. Grating coupler was fabricated by the mold and normal optical mask. In the proposed method, no press which is needed for imprint lithography is required and the mold structure can be duplicated with high aspect ratio. Experimental coupling efficiency is about 25%. This technique can also be used to fabricate other nanometer-scale structures.     

不同温度下环氧树脂代木搪塑模具的固化过程

采用流变学的方法研究了环氧树脂代木搪塑模具在不同温度下的固化过程。 为了找到合适的测试条件,首先研究了应变和振荡频率对环氧树脂代木搪塑模具的测试结果的影响。 环氧树脂代木搪塑模具固化过程中,体系交联程度逐渐变大;在不同的固化阶段,固化程度的变化快慢不同,先缓慢增加,然后迅速增加,最后缓慢增加至平台值;储能模量和损耗模量的变化速度在不同阶段的变化与固化程度的变化相似,根据储能模量和损耗模量的最快增长速率与温度的关系得到体系的活化能约为27.2 kJ/mol;随着固化温度升高,环氧树脂代木搪塑模具固化完全所需的时间减少,同时环氧树脂的施工容留时间也相应地减少。     

“数学模型”课程教学模式的探讨

本文介绍了开设“数学模型”课程在工科院校数学教学改革中的重要性．并讨论如何组织“数学模型”课程的教学．     

光学塑料注射成型的状态分析

本文通过对塑料光学元件注射成型过程的分析，以光学塑料熔体的状态方程以及流变学Ｈａ－ｇｅｎ－Ｐｏｉｓｅｌｌｉｌｅ方程为出发点，讨论并给出了光学塑料零件的成型工艺及模具浇注系统的设计准则。