Spherical Polyolefin Particles from Olefin Polymerization in the Confined Geometry of Porous Hollow Silica Particles

Porous hollow silica particles (HSPs) are presented as new templates to control the product morphology in metallocene‐catalyzed olefin polymerization. By selectively immobilizing catalysts inside the micrometer‐sized porous hollow silica particles, the high hydraulic forces resulting from polymer growth within the confined geometries of the HSPs cause its supporting shell to break up from the inside. As the shape of the support is replicated during olefin polymerization, perfectly spherical product particles with very narrow size distribution can be achieved by using HSPs exhibiting a monomodal size distribution. Furthermore, the size of the obtained product particles can be controlled not only by the polymerization time but also by the size of the support material.

     

Transition from enantioselective high performance to ultra-high performance liquid chromatography: A case study of a brush-type chiral stationary phase based on sub-5-micron to sub-2-micron silica particles

Three brush-type chiral stationary phases (CSPs) differing in the particle size of the starting silica particles have been prepared by covalent grafting of the π-acidic bis-(3,5-dinitrobenzoyl)-derivative of trans-1,2-diaminocyclohexane (DACH-DNB). Starting silica particles of 4.3, 2.6 and 1.9 micron were used to generate the final CSPs using an improved, highly reproducible synthetic methodology, that allowed to assemble and surface-graft the whole chiral selector in only two steps. The different CSPs have been packed in columns of various length and diameters, and fully characterized in terms of flow permeability, kinetic performances and enantioselectivity using a set of test solutes. Very high speed and high resolution applications together with stereodynamic HPLC examples are demonstrated on the columns with reduced particle diameters, on which separations of several enantiomeric pairs are routinely obtained with analysis times in the 15–40 s range.     

Fundamental theories of waves and particles formulated without classical mass

Quantum and classical mechanics are two conceptually and mathematically different theories of physics, and yet they do use the same concept of classical mass that was originally introduced by Newton in his formulation of the laws of dynamics. In this paper, physical consequences of using the classical mass by both theories are explored, and a novel approach that allows formulating fundamental (Galilean invariant) theories of waves and particles without formally introducing the classical mass is presented. In this new formulation, the theories depend only on one common parameter called ‘wave mass’, which is deduced from experiments for selected elementary particles and for the classical mass of one kilogram. It is shown that quantum theory with the wave mass is independent of the Planck constant and that higher accuracy of performing calculations can be attained by such theory. Natural units in connection with the presented approach are also discussed and justification beyond dimensional analysis is given for the particular choice of such units.     

Simultaneous CFD evaluation of wind flow and dust emission in open storage piles

Dust emission from storage yards is a multivariable problem to be solved not only at any new installation in order to obtain the licenses from the involved authorities but also at existing yards to continue the operation. Engineers have a great variety of methodologies available at the market to estimate such emissions, but in general the process is divided into two independent stages: wind flow analysis and application of emission rates into such wind pattern. This paper summarizes the research developed by this group to link both steps: by using CFX version 10.0, a powerful computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, the wind flow around the piles is predicted, or even through a complex yard, and at the same time by implementing new subroutines introduced into the standard software, the program is able to give a quantitative evaluation of the total fugitive dust.     

Purification of His-tagged hepatitis B core antigen from unclarified bacterial homogenate using immobilized metal affinity-expanded bed adsorption chromatography

Hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) is used as a diagnostic reagent for the detection of hepatitis B virus infection. In this study, immobilized metal affinity-expanded bed adsorption chromatography (IMA-EBAC) was employed to purify N-terminally His-tagged HBcAg from unclarified bacterial homogenate. Streamline Chelating was used as the adsorbent and the batch adsorption experiment showed that the optimal binding pH of His-tagged HBcAg was 8.0 with a binding capacity of 1.8 mg per ml of adsorbent. The optimal elution condition for the elution of His-tagged HBcAg from the adsorbent was at pH 7 in the presence of 500 mM imidazole and 1.5 M NaCl. The IMA-EBAC has successfully recovered 56% of His-tagged HBcAg from the unclarified E. coli homogenate with a purification factor of 3.64. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) showed that the antigenicity of the recovered His-tagged HBcAg was not affected throughout the IMA-EBAC purification process and electron microscopy revealed that the protein assembled into virus-like particles (VLP).     

Aerosol optical properties assessed by an inversion method using the solar principal plane for non-spherical particles

Adequate modeling of light scattering by non-spherical particles is one of the major difficulties in remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols, mainly in desert dust outbreaks. In this paper we test a parameterization of the particle shape in size distribution, single-scattering albedo, phase function and asymmetry parameter retrieval from beam and sky-radiance measurements, based on the model Skyrad.pack, taking into account the principal plane measurements configuration. The method is applied under different Saharan dust outbreaks. We compare the results with those obtained by the almucantar measurements configuration. The results obtained by both methodologies agree and make possible to extend the parameter retrieval to smaller zenith angles than that used in the retrieval from almucantar geometries.     

Equations of motion from field equations and a gauge-invariant variational principle for the motion of charged particles

New, gauge-independent, second-order Lagrangian for the motion of classical, charged test particles is proposed. It differs from the standard, gauge-dependent, first-order Lagrangian by boundary terms only. A new method of deriving equations of motion from field equations is developed. When applied to classical electrodynamics, this method enables us to obtain unambiguously the above, second-order Lagrangian from the general energy-momentum conservation principle.     

Renormalizable theories from nonrenormalizable interactions

By using Kikkawa’s method the equivalence of the nonrenormalizable pair interaction to a renormalizable theory is proved. Equivalence relationships between a few other nonrenormalizable and renormalizable interactions are also indicated.