Aromatic poly(sulfone sulfide amide imide)s as new types of soluble thermally stable polymers

A new diamine monomer containing flexible sulfone, sulfide, and amide units was prepared via three steps. Nucleophilic chloro displacement reaction of 4‐aminothiophenol with 4‐nitrobenzoyl chloride in the presence of propylene oxide afforded N‐(4‐mercapto‐phenyl)‐4‐nitrobenzamide and subsequent reduction of the nitro intermediate led to 4‐amino‐N‐(4‐mercapto‐phenyl)benzamide. Two moles of this amino thiophenol compound was reacted with bis‐(4‐chloro phenyl)sulfone to provide a novel diamine monomer. The diamine was reacted with aromatic dianhydrides to form polyimides via a two‐step polycondensation method, formation of poly(amic acid)s, followed by chemical imidization. The resulting polymers were characterized and their physical properties including thermal behavior, thermal stability, solubility and inherent viscosity were studied. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and characterization of novel heat resistant poly(amide imide)s

A series of new poly(amide imide)s was prepared from new diacid containing sulfone, ether, amide and imide groups with various aromatic diamines. The diacid was synthesized via four steps, starting from reaction of 4-aminophenol with 4-nitrobenzoyl chloride in the presence of propylene oxide afforded N-(4-hydroxy phenyl)-4-nitrobenzamide. In the second step, reduction of nitro group resulted in preparation of 4-amino-N-(4-hydroxy phenyl) benzamide. In the next step for the preparation of diamine, the reaction of 4-amino-N-(4-hydroxy phenyl) benzamide with bis-(4-chlorophenyl) sulfone in the presence of K₂CO₃ was achieved. The prepared sulfone ether amide diamine was reacted with two moles of trimellitic anhydride to synthesize related sulfone ether amide imide diacid. The precursors and final monomer were characterized by FT-IR, H-NMR and elemental analysis. Direct polycondensation reaction of the sulfone ether amide imide diacid with different diamines in the presence of triphenyl phosphite afforded five different poly (sulfone ether amide imide amide)s. The obtained polymers were fully characterized and their physical properties including thermal behavior, thermal stability, solubility, and inherent viscosity were studied.     

Solid-Phase Microextraction Gas Chromatography for Determination of Some Organophosphorus Pesticides

A simple and rapid solid-phase microextraction (SPME) method is presented based on activated charcoal–PVC fiber for determination of some organophosphorus pesticides from aqueous samples in direct mode SPME. After optimization of the experimental variables affecting SPME of the target compounds from aqueous solutions, the proposed method was applied to determine pesticides in fruit juice. The analytes in this procedure were preconcentrated for 15 min on the SPME fiber and subsequently desorbed by heating the fiber at 200 °C for 5 min in the GC injection port. Separation was on a capillary column GC followed by flame ionization detection. Recoveries of the pesticides studied in aqueous samples ranged 42%–63% and repeatability for all analytes was < 9% for a single fiber. Fiber-to-fiber reproducibility was < 18%.     

Oxidative coupling of methane over （Na2WO4＋Mn or Ce）/SiO2 catalysts： In situ measurement of electrical conductivity

The effects of manganese oxide or ceria promoters on the performance of Na2WO4/SiO2 catalysts for oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) are reported. The OCM reaction was performed in a continuous-flow microreactor at 800 ℃, atmospheric pressure and under GHSV = 13200 ml gC-1at h-1. Catalysts were characterized by in situ conductivity measurement, FT-IR spectroscopy, XRD, SEM and temperature programmed reduction analysis. Manganese oxide promoted Na2WO4/SiO2 is considered as one of the active and selective ca...     

Separation and quantification of quantum dots and dissolved metal cations by size exclusion chromatography–ICP-MS

The prevalence of engineered metallic nanoparticles within electronic products has evoked a need to assess their occurrence and fate within environmental systems upon potential release of these nanoparticles. Quantum dots (QDs) are mixed-metal nanocrystals with the smallest of particle sizes (2–10 nm) that readily leach heavy metal cations in water, potentially creating a co-occurrence of nanoparticulate and dissolved metal pollutants. In this report, we develop a size exclusion chromatography–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry method (SEC-ICP-MS) for the rapid separation and quantification of ~5-nm-sized CdSe/ZnS QDs and dissolved Cd²⁺ and Zn²⁺ cations in water. The SEC-ICP-MS method provided a wide chromatographic separation of CdSe/ZnS QDs and dissolved Cd²⁺ and Zn²⁺ cations only when using the smallest SEC column pore size available and an eluent composition that prevented loss of metals to column polymer surfaces by using a surfactant to ensure elution of QDs (ammonium lauryl sulfate) and a complexing ligand to ensure elution of metal cations (ethylenediaminetetraacetate). Detection limits were between 0.2 and 2 µg L^–1 for Cd²⁺ and Zn²⁺ among dissolved cation and QD phases, and ranges of linearity covered two to three orders of magnitude. Gold nanoparticles of sizes 5, 10, 20 and 50 nm were also effectively separated from dissolved Au³⁺ cations, illustrating the method applicability to a wide range of nanoparticle sizes and compositions. QD and dissolved metal concentrations measured by SEC-ICP-MS were comparable to those measured using the more conventional method of centrifuge ultrafiltration on split samples for dissolved and total metals. The applicability of the SEC-ICP-MS method to environmental systems was verified by measuring QDs and dissolved metals added to samples of natural waters. The method was also applied to monitoring CdSe/ZnS dissolution kinetics in an urban river water. The SEC-ICP-MS developed here may offer improved automation for characterising heterogeneous suspensions containing >1 µg L^–1 heavy metals.     

Higher-Order Fourier Analysis Of {\mathbb{F}_{p}^n} And The Complexity Of Systems Of Linear Forms

In this article we are interested in the density of small linear structures (e.g. arithmetic progressions) in subsets A of the group \mathbbF_pⁿ{\mathbb{F}_{p}^n} . It is possible to express these densities as certain analytic averages involving 1 _A , the indicator function of A. In the higher-order Fourier analytic approach, the function 1 _A is decomposed as a sum f ₁ + f ₂ where f ₁ is structured in the sense that it has a simple higher-order Fourier expansion, and f ₂ is pseudo-random in the sense that the k-th Gowers uniformity norm of f ₂, denoted by ||f₂||_U^k{\|{f_2}\|_{U^k}}, is small for a proper value of k.     

Circular chromatic index of graphs of maximum degree 3

This paper proves that if G is a graph (parallel edges allowed) of maximum degree 3, then χ′_c(G) ≤ 11/3 provided that G does not contain H₁ or H₂ as a subgraph, where H₁ and H₂ are obtained by subdividing one edge of K (the graph with three parallel edges between two vertices) and K₄, respectively. As χ′_c(H₁) = χ′_c(H₂) = 4, our result implies that there is no graph G with 11/3 < χ′_c(G) < 4. It also implies that if G is a 2‐edge connected cubic graph, then χ′_c(G) ≤ 11/3. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 49: 325–335, 2005     

Electron–electron interaction induced spin thermalization in quasi-low-dimensional spin valves

We study the spin thermalization, i.e., the inter-spin energy relaxation mediated by electron–electron scattering in small spin valves. When one or two of the dimensions of the spin valve spacer are smaller than the thermal coherence length, the direct spin energy exchange rate diverges and needs to be regularized by the sample dimensions. Here we consider two model systems: a long quasi-1D wire and a thin quasi-2D sheet.     

Experimental investigation and prediction of the thermal conductivity of water-based oxide nanofluids with low volume fractions

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Although there are already many models for prediction of the thermal conductivity of nanoparticle suspension, most of them only consider the cases for...