Modification of surface properties of electrospun polyamide nanofibers by means of a perfluorinated acridine

Polyamide 6 (PA6) nanofibers were prepared from formic acid solutions by using electrospinning technique. The fibers were smooth, defects free and with diameters smaller than 200 nm. Small amounts of a perfluorinated acridine were added as dopant to the feed solution to modify the wettability of the fibers. The effect of doping on the contact angle values is well apparent. The contact angle values go from 50° of pure PA6 to 120° when 6% of acridine is added. A comparison between fibers and films of pure and doped polyamide 6 was carried out in order to determine the effect of morphology on wettability. Thermal annealing near the T_g of the polymer promoted the segregation of the molecules to the surface, reaching contact angles of 131° with smaller amounts (4%) of acridine. The surface segregation was also promoted by time aging.     

Mechanically stable and corrosion resistant superhydrophobic sol-gel coatings on copper substrate

Development of the anticorrosion coatings on metals having both passive matrix functionality and active response to changes in the aggressive environment has raised tremendous interest in material science. Using a sol-gel deposition method, superhydrophobic copper substrate could be obtained. The best hydrophobic coating sol was prepared with methyltriethoxysilane (MTES), methanol (MeOH), and water (as 7 M NH₄OH) at a molar ratio of 1:19.1:4.31 respectively. The surface morphological study showed the ball like silica particles distributed on the copper substrate with particle sizes ranging from 8 to 12 μm. The coatings showed the static water contact angle as high as 155° and the water sliding angle as low as 7°. The superhydrophobic nature was maintained even though the deposited copper substrate was soaked for 100 h in 50% of HCl solution. The coatings are stable against humidity and showed superhydrophobic behavior even after 90 days of exposure. The coatings are mechanically stable and water drops maintained the spherical shape on the bent copper substrate, which was bent more than 90°.     

Lifschitz singularities for periodic operators plus random potentials

UsingX-bounding (lower bounds by Laplacians with mixed boundary conditions and discrete analogs), we obtain the Lifschitz exponent at the bottom of the spectrum for random operators of typeH =T+V , withT a (periodic) generator of a positivity-preserving semigroup, extending results by Kirsch and Simon.     

M+AsF6-(M=Li,Na,K,Rb和Cs)离子对的结构和振动光谱

利用abinitio计算方法研究了AsF6-阴离子和M AsF6-(M =Li ,Na ,K ,Rb 和Cs )直接接触离子对的结构和光谱行为。结果表明,具有C3V结构三齿相互作用的M AsF6-最稳定,二齿配位的结构只有在特定条件下才可能稳定存在。当形成离子对后,阳离子与AsF6-的相互作用将改变AsF6-的结构,这其中Li 的影响最大。另外,AsF6-光谱的变化可用来指认溶液中离子的缔合和离子对的种类。     

Electrochemical, morphological and microstructural characterization of carbon film resistor electrodes for application in electrochemical sensors

The electrochemical and microstructural properties of carbon film electrodes made from carbon film electrical resistors of 1.5, 15, 140 Ω and 2.0 kΩ nominal resistance have been investigated before and after electrochemical pre-treatment at +0.9 V vs SCE, in order to assess the potential use of these carbon film electrodes as electrochemical sensors and as substrates for sensors and biosensors. The results obtained are compared with those at electrodes made from previously investigated 2 Ω carbon film resistors. Cyclic voltammetry was performed in acetate buffer and phosphate buffer saline electrolytes and the kinetic parameters of the model redox system Fe(CN)₆^3−/4− obtained. The 1.5 Ω resistor electrodes show the best properties for sensor development with wide potential windows, similar electrochemical behaviour to those of 2 Ω and close-to-reversible kinetic parameters after electrochemical pre-treatment. The 15 and 140 Ω resistor electrodes show wide potential windows although with slower kinetics, whereas the 2.0 kΩ resistor electrodes show poor cyclic voltammetric profiles even after pre-treatment. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy related these findings to the interfacial properties of the electrodes. Microstructural and morphological studies were carried out using contact mode Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Confocal Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. AFM showed more homogeneity of the films with lower nominal resistances, related to better electrochemical characteristics. X-ray diffraction and Confocal Raman spectroscopy indicate the existence of a graphitic structure in the carbon films.     

Effective intervals and regular Dirichlet subspaces

It is shown in Li and Ying (2019) that a regular and local Dirichlet form on an interval can be represented by so-called effective intervals with scale functions. This paper focuses on how to operate on effective intervals to obtain regular Dirichlet subspaces. The first result is a complete characterization for a Dirichlet form to be a regular subspace of such a Dirichlet form in terms of effective intervals. Then we give an explicit road map how to obtain all regular Dirichlet subspaces from a local and regular Dirichlet form on an interval, by a series of intuitive operations on the effective intervals in the representation above. Finally applying previous results, we shall prove that every regular and local Dirichlet form has a special standard core generated by a continuous and strictly increasing function.     

Canonical Lorentzian spin structure and twistor spinors on the Fefferman space of a contact Riemannian manifold

The Fefferman space of a contact Riemannian manifold carries a Lorentzian spin structure canonically. On the Lorentzian spin manifold, we investigate the Dirac operator and the twistor operator closely. In particular, we show that, if the contact Riemannian manifold is integrable, then there exist non-zero global solutions of the twistor equation.     

A remark on congruences for coefficients of Faber polynomials

Faber polynomials appear when weight zero Hecke operators act on the modular j-invariant. They are polynomials in j with rational integral coefficents. Using the theory of p-adic modular forms we establish some congruences and divisibilities for these coefficients. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification Primary—11F33 Supported by NSF grant DMS-0501225.