Determination of Volatile Organic Compounds by a Novel Polymer Spin-Coated Thin Film and Surface Plasmon Resonance

Here, the synthesis, characterization, and volatile organic compound (VOCs) sensing of a 1,3-dimethyl polyphenylene vinylene polymer is reported. The synthesis was performed by a Witting condensation through the reaction of 1,4-terphthaldehyde with the phosphonium chloride of meta-xylene. The material was characterized by infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and thermogravimetric analyses. Thin films of the polymer were prepared by spin coating at speeds from 1000 to 5000?rpm. Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy and surface plasmon resonance were used to characterize the spin-coated films. The thicknesses of the films were estimated by fitting the curves and were between 4.5 and 24.5?nm depending on the speed. The refractive index of the new polymer was 1.72. The polymer spin-coated films were exposed to volatile organic vapors to characterize their sensing properties by surface plasmon resonance as a function of time. The results showed that the new material responded rapidly, sensitively, and reversibly to VOCs.     

Morphological change of crystalline polymer films by annealing: substrate‐ and heating/cooling‐rate‐dependent surface roughness

We study the morphological change of crystalline polymer films by annealing using atomic force microscope, X‐ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy techniques. As typical samples, we employ high‐density and low‐density polyethylene films prepared by the cast method. After annealing at 135 °C for 4 h, the surface roughness of polyethylene films by the atomic force microscope significantly increases, and the crystallite size by the X‐ray diffraction also shows some increase, while the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectrum hardly exhibits any change. This can be well explained as a result of the growth of crystal structure by recrystallization during annealing. More interestingly, we find that the choice of the substrate and also the heating/cooling rates for annealing significantly influences the surface roughness of the films. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Viscoelastic behaviour of silica filled natural rubber composites – Correlation of shear with elongational testing

Dynamic mechanical behaviour of natural rubber-silica composites was studied by a frequency sweep method at different temperatures (40 °C,70 °C and 100 °C) using a dynamic mechanical analyzer and a rotorless rheometer, RPA, in an attempt to establish a correlation between the two. The composites with silica content up to 40 phr were studied. It was found that the dependence of dynamic modulus on the frequency as obtained from both the instruments followed a similar trend. This suggests that the dynamic mechanical properties of rubber compounds can be determined even during curing. A correlation could be arrived at between the two sets of data, making it possible to predict one set knowing the other. The impact of silane coupling agent, bis (3-triethoxysilylpropyl tetrasulphide), TESPT, on viscoelasticity was also investigated. The mechanical properties were improved in the presence of TESPT. Additionally, an increase in thermal stability was also observed in the presence of TESPT. Scanning electron micrographs showed the better filler dispersion in the case of silane-coupled silica composites.     

New algorithm for tensor contractions on multi‐core CPUs,GPUs, and accelerators enables CCSD and EOM‐CCSD calculations with over 1000 basis functions on a single compute node

A new hardware‐agnostic contraction algorithm for tensors of arbitrary symmetry and sparsity is presented. The algorithm is implemented as a stand‐alone open‐source code libxm . This code is also integrated with general tensor library libtensor and with the Q‐Chem quantum‐chemistry package. An overview of the algorithm, its implementation, and benchmarks are presented. Similarly to other tensor software, the algorithm exploits efficient matrix multiplication libraries and assumes that tensors are stored in a block‐tensor form. The distinguishing features of the algorithm are: (i) efficient repackaging of the individual blocks into large matrices and back, which affords efficient graphics processing unit (GPU)‐enabled calculations without modifications of higher‐level codes; (ii) fully asynchronous data transfer between disk storage and fast memory. The algorithm enables canonical all‐electron coupled‐cluster and equation‐of‐motion coupled‐cluster calculations with single and double substitutions (CCSD and EOM‐CCSD) with over 1000 basis functions on a single quad‐GPU machine. We show that the algorithm exhibits predicted theoretical scaling for canonical CCSD calculations, O (N ⁶), irrespective of the data size on disk. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A novel method for the determination of diffusion coefficients in amorphous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)

A novel approach is proposed for the determination of the diffusion coefficient of certain drugs in amorphous poly(hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), which can be a reliable alternative to the conventional permeation based measurements. The method requires the preparation of PHB films with various concentrations of the drug and if the latter absorbs in the visible wavelength range, its concentration gradient in the polymer film as well as the time dependence of the latter can be analyzed quantitatively by following changes in color. Color can be converted into concentration with the help of adequate calibration and thus the dependence of additive concentration on space (x) and time (t), i.e. the c(x,t) function, can be determined relatively easily. The fitting of the numerical solution of Fick's second law onto the measured values provides directly the targeted diffusion coefficient. The comparison of diffusion coefficients obtained by the proposed approach to values published in the literature proved that the new method provides reliable results and requires reasonable time and effort at the same time.     

热溶液中Nafion膜电极电化学分析法测定偶氮二甲酰胺

基于偶氮二甲酰胺在热溶液中的高溶解度及其与Nafion膜电极的静电作用,建立了偶氮二甲酰胺的电化学分析法.考察了偶氮二甲酰胺溶解度的温度效应,研究了偶氮二甲酰胺在Nafion膜电极上还原反应的机理.利用热溶液中偶氮二甲酰胺在Nafion膜电极上的伏安响应,用差分脉冲伏安法测定了面粉中的偶氮二甲酰胺含量.在水浴恒温80℃、pH 6.0的实验条件和优化的测试参数下,Nafion膜电极的电流响应与偶氮二甲酰胺的浓度在0.93～ 10.5 μg/L范围内呈线性关系,检出限为0.58 μg/L(S/N=3),对实际样品测定的相对标准偏差小于5.9％,回收率为95.8％ ～ 104.0％,氨基脲和呋喃西林不干扰偶氮二甲酰胺的测定.     

在FTO导电玻璃上电化学沉积高效可见光光电化学分解水Cu2O/g-C3N4异质结膜

近几十年来,光电化学分解水制氢作为一种洁净的、能持续利用太阳能的技术受到极大关注.在众多光催化材料中,p型半导体氧化亚铜(Cu2O)被认为是最有前途的可见光光电分解水材料之一.理论上,它的光能转换为氢能的效率可达到18.7%.然而,目前所报道的Cu2O光转换效率远远低于此值;同时,纯Cu2O在光照条件下的稳定性较差.研究表明,Cu2O与其它半导体复合可以增强其光电转换效率和提高稳定性.如Cu2O和能带匹配的石墨相氮化碳(g-C3N4)复合后,光催化性能和稳定性都有较大提高.但目前所报道的Cu2O/g-C3N4复合物几乎都是粉末状催化剂,不便于回收和重复使用.本文首先采用电化学方法在FTO导电玻璃上沉积Cu2O薄膜,采用溶胶凝胶法制备g-C3N4纳米颗粒材料,然后采用电化学法在Cu2O薄膜表面沉积一层g-C3N4纳米颗粒,得到了Cu2O/g-C3N4异质结膜.分别利用X射线粉末衍射(XRD)、高分辨透射电子显微镜(HRTEM)、扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、紫外可见光谱(UV-Vis)和光电化学分解水实验分析了Cu2O/g-C3N4异质结的组成结构、表面形貌、光吸收性能及催化剂活性和稳定性.XRD和HRTEM表征显示,本文成功合成了Cu2O/g-C3N4异质结材料,SEM图表明g-C3N4纳米颗粒在Cu2O表面分布均匀,大小均一.可见光光电化学分解水结果显示,异质结薄膜的光电化学性能比纯的Cu2O和g-C3N4薄膜材料有极大提高.当在Cu2O表面沉积g-C3N4的时间为15 s时,得到样品Cu2O/g-C3N4-15异质结膜,其在–0.4 V和可见光照射条件下,光电流密度达到了–1.38 mA/cm2,分别是纯Cu2O和g-C3N4薄膜材料的19.7和6.3倍.产氢速率也达到了0.48 mL h–1 cm–2,且产氢和产氧的速率之比约为2,说明此异质结材料在可见光作用下能全分解水.经过三次循环实验,光电化学分解水的效率仅降低10.8%,表明该材料具有良好的稳定性.根据UV-Vis表征和光电化学性能对比,Cu2O/g-C3N4-15的光电性能最好,但其光吸收性能并不是最好,说明光电化学性能与光吸收不是成正比关系,主要是由于Cu2O和g-C3N4两个半导体相互起到了协同作用.机理分析表明,Cu2O/g-C3N4异质结薄膜在光照下,由于两者能带匹配,Cu2O的光生电子从其导带转移到g-C3N4的导带上,g-C3N4价带上的空隙转移到Cu2O的价带上,从而降低了光生电子和空隙的复合,提高了其光催化性能.由于g-C3N4的导带位置高于H2O(或H+)还原为H2的电势,Cu2O的价带位置低于H2O(或OH–)还原为O2的电势,所以在外加–0.4 V偏压和可见光照射条件下,Cu2O/g-C3N4能全分解水,光生载流子越多,光电化学分解水的速率越大.综上所述,在Cu2O薄膜上沉积g-C3N4后得到的异质结薄膜具有高效的光能转换为氢能性能.     

一种铈（Ⅲ）配合物对含石墨粘结涂层耐蚀性的影响

为了改善含石墨粘结涂层的耐蚀性，首先对这种涂层在腐蚀环境中耐蚀性差的原因进行了分析，然后将二正丁基磷酸、ＣｅＦ＿３、Ｓｂ＿２Ｏ＿３和一种Ｃｅ（Ⅲ）配合物Ｃｅ（ＮＯ＿３）（Ｃ＿８Ｈ＿（１８）ＰＯ＿４）＿２分别添加于酚醛环氧－ＭｏＳ＿２－石墨粘结涂层中，考察了它们对这种涂层耐蚀性的影响，并对含Ｃｅ（ＮＯ＿３）（Ｃ＿８Ｈ＿（１８）ＰＯ＿４）＿２的涂层和空白样涂层进行了表面分析。盐雾试验表明，添加Ｃｅ（ＮＯ＿３）（Ｃ＿８Ｈ＿（１８）ＰＯ＿４）＿２可以有效地抑制涂层中ＭｏＳ＿２的氧化和由石墨所引起的金属底材之电化学腐蚀；根据Ｘ射线光电子能谱分析结果可知，添加Ｃｅ（ＮＯ＿３）（Ｃ＿８Ｈ＿（１８）ＰＯ＿４）＿２之所以能够提高含石墨粘结涂层的耐蚀性，应当归因于它在ＭｏＳ＿２晶体表面和金属底材表面的吸附。因此，Ｃｅ（Ⅲ）配合物Ｃｅ（ＮＯ＿３）（Ｃ＿８Ｈ＿（１８）ＰＯ＿４）＿２是含石墨粘结涂层的一种实用性能良好的新型防腐添加剂。     

An adaptive critic neural network for motion control of a wheeled mobile robot

In this paper, we propose a new application of the adaptive critic methodology for the feedback control of wheeled mobile robots, based on a critic signal provided by a neural network (NN). The adaptive critic architecture uses a high-level supervisory NN adaptive critic element (ACE), to generate the reinforcement signal to optimise the associative search element (ASE), which is applied to approximate the non-linear functions of the mobile robot. The proposed tracking controller is derived from Lyapunov stability theory and can guarantee tracking performance and stability. A series of computer simulations have been used to emulate the performance of the proposed solution for a wheeled mobile robot.