Preparation of macromonomers by copolymerization of methyl acrylate dimer involving β fragmentation

The unsaturated dimer of methyl acrylate [CH₂C(CO₂CH₃)CH₂CH₂CO₂CH₃, or MAD] was copolymerized with various monomers to prepare copolymers bearing the ω-unsaturated end group [CH₂C(CO₂CH₃)CH₂ ] arising from β fragmentation of the MAD propagating radical. Copolymerizations of MAD with cyclohexyl and n-butyl acrylate resulted in copolymers with ω-unsaturated end groups, and increasing the temperature up to 180 °C resulted in an increase in the rate of β fragmentation of MAD radicals relative to propagation. Only a small amount of unsaturated end groups was introduced by copolymerization with ethyl methacrylate (EMA), and the EMA content in the copolymer increased with temperature. These findings could be explained by the reversible addition of the poly(EMA) radical to MAD. The copolymerization with ethyl α-ethyl acrylate (EEA) did yield a copolymer containing unsaturated end groups with MAD units as part of the main chain, although the steric hindrance of the ethyl group suppressed homopropagation and crosspropagation of EEA, resulting in low polymerization rates. Therefore, the copolymerization of MAD with acrylic esters at high temperatures was noted as a convenient route for obtaining acrylate–MAD copolymers bearing unsaturated end groups at the ω end (macromonomer). © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 597–607, 2004     

Fracture mechanism of liquid‐crystalline epoxy resin systems with different phase structures

A liquid‐crystalline epoxy resin was cured at two different temperatures. The phases of the cured systems clearly showed isotropic and nematic polydomain structures, which depended on the curing temperature. The fracture toughness of the systems was measured, and the fracture mechanism was investigated with polarized IR measurements. The nematic polydomain structure system showed considerably higher fracture toughness than the isotropic structure. Moreover, both systems exhibited a reorientation of the network chains near the fracture surface during the fracture process, and the region of the network reorientation in the nematic polydomain structure system was larger than that in the isotropic structure system. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 4044–4052, 2004     

Classification of Extremal Double Circulant Self-Dual Codes of Lengths 64 to 72

Recently extremal double circulant self-dual codes have been classified for lengths n ≤ 62. In this paper, a complete classification of extremal double circulant self-dual codes of lengths 64 to 72 is presented. Almost all of the extremal double circulant singly-even codes given have weight enumerators for which extremal codes were not previously known to exist.     

Self-Orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) Designs and Extremal Doubly-Even Self-Dual Codes of Length 56

In this paper, we show that the code generated by the rows of a block-point incidence matrix of a self-orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) design is a doubly-even self-dual code of length 56. As a consequence, it is shown that an extremal doubly-even self-dual code of length 56 is generated by the codewords of minimum weight. We also demonstrate that there are more than one thousand inequivalent extremal doubly-even self-dual [56,28,12] codes. This result shows that there are more than one thousand non-isomorphic self-orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) designs. AMS Classification: 94B05, 05B05     

Evaluation of fine structure of tubular zeolite NaA membrane by FTIR-ATR and FIB-TEM.

A zeolite NaA (LTA) membrane supported by an alumina porous support tube for pervaporation (PV) dehydration of ethanol was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) using a focused ion beam (FIB) thin-layer specimen preparation technique and by Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance method (FTIR-ATR) using a diamond prism as the waveguide. FIB-TEM clearly presented cross-section images up to about 15 microm depth from the membrane surface. FTIR-ATR monitored the Si-O asymmetric stretching vibration spectrum. The Si-O spectrum was compared with the TEM image and their relationships were discussed. By combining the two methods, we could study the thickness of surface LTA crystals, the grain boundary, the LTA/alumina interface structure and the crystallinity and density of materials inside of the alumina porous support. Consequently, fine structure changes of the LTA membrane corresponding to the hydrothermal synthesis condition could be sensitively detected.     

Influence of the network chain orientation on the fracture toughness of a mesogenic epoxy resin modified with CTBN

A biphenol‐type epoxy resin, which had a mesogenic group in the backbone moiety, was modified with carboxy‐terminated butadiene acrylonitrile copolymer (CTBN) as a reactive elastomer, and its fracture toughness was measured. With the addition of CTBN, the fracture toughness of the biphenol‐type epoxy resin significantly increased and became significantly higher than that of a bisphenol A‐type epoxy resin modified with CTBN. The network chain orientation in the cured biphenol‐type epoxy resin system was clearly observed during the fracture process with polarized microscopy Fourier transform infrared measurements, although such a phenomenon was not observed in the bisphenol A‐type epoxy resin system. The high toughness of the cured biphenol‐type system was clearly due to the consumption of the mechanical energy by a large deformation of the matrix resin due to the orientation of the network chains during the fracture process. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 1198–1209, 2003     

Reduction of dislocation density and improvement of optical quality in ZnO layers by MgO-buffer annealing

Optical properties of ZnO thin films with/without MgO-buffer annealing were investigated by low and room temperature photoluminescence measurements. The ZnO films were grown on c-sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy employing a thin MgO-buffer layer. Dislocation density of ZnO layer was reduced from 5.3 × 10⁹ to 1.9 × 10⁹ cm⁻² by annealing MgO-buffer prior to the growth of ZnO. The intensity of free exciton emission from the sample with MgO-buffer annealing was almost twice of that from the sample without annealing, while the deep level emission from the sample with MgO-buffer annealing was about 1/3 of that without annealing. The MgO-buffer annealing improves optical quality of overgrown ZnO films.     

Extremal Self-Dual [50, 25, 10] Codes with Automorphisms of Order 3 and Quasi-Symmetric 2-(49, 9,6) Designs

Five non-isomorphic quasi-symmetric 2-(49, 9, 6) designs are known. They arise from extremal self-dual [50, 25, 10] codes with a certain weight enumerator. Four of them have an automorphism of order 3 fixing two points. In this paper, it is shown that there are exactly 48 inequivalent extremal self-dual [50, 25, 10] code with this weight enumerator and an automorphism of order 3 fixing two points. 44 new quasi-symmetric 2-(49, 9, 6) designs with an automorphism of order 3 are constructed from these codes.     

Cluster and periodic DFT calculations of adsorption and activation of CO2 on the Cu(hkl) surfaces

The adsorption behavior and thermal activation of carbon dioxide on the Cu(1 1 1), Cu(1 0 0), and Cu(1 1 0) surfaces have been investigated by means of density functional theory calculations and cluster models and periodic slabs. According to the cluster models, the optimized results indicate that the basis set of C and O atoms has a distinct effect on the adsorption energy, but an indistinct one on the equilibrium geometry. For the CO₂/Cu(hkl) adsorption systems studied here, the final structure of adsorbed CO₂ is near linear and the preferred modes for the adsorption of CO₂ onto the Cu(1 1 1), Cu(1 0 0), and Cu(1 1 0) surfaces are the side-on adsorption at the cross bridge site with an adsorption energy of 13.06 kJ/mol, the side-on adsorption at the short bridge site (13.54 kJ/mol), and the end-on adsorption on the on-top site with C–O bonds located along the short bridge site (26.01 kJ/mol), respectively. However, the calculated adsorption energies from periodic slabs are lower as compared to the experimental data as well as the cluster model data, indicating that the periodic slab approach of generalized gradient approximation in the density function theory may be not suitable to obtain quantitative information on the interaction of CO₂ with Cu(hkl) surfaces.