Dynamic mechanical properties of three different combinations taken from styrene-co-itaconate, styrene-co-methacrylate, and styrene-co-sulfonate ionomers

Dynamic mechanical properties of three different styrene-based ionomer blends containing ca. 5 mol% of ionic repeat units were investigated; the three ionic units were itaconate (ITANa), methacrylate (MANa), and styrenesulfonate (SNa). For SNa-MANa ionomers, it was observed that this ionomer system showed only two loss tangent peaks, implying that this ionomer system resembles a typical miscible system. When the ion content increased, however, the ionomer blend showed two cluster loss tangent peaks, indicating the presence of phase-separated cluster regions. This suggests that, with increasing ion content, the role of ionic units becomes more important than that of host non-ionic units to determine ionomer properties. In the case of ITANa-MANa and ITANa-SNa ionomers, however, it was suggested that the multiplets of the MANa and SNa ionomers might be disrupted upon the addition of the ITANa ionomers. In addition, the SEM images showed that the fracture surfaces of ionomers changed upon blending.     

On-line identification of interacting two-tank system

In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the process identification algorithm, on-line parameter estimator is evaluated experimentally by using two-tank system with interaction. On-line parameter estimator used in this paper is based on a recursive parameter estimation algorithm. MIMO linear, bilinear and quadratic models based on ARMA model are used to identify two-tank system. A quadratic model for two-tank system with interaction is developed to confirm the propriety of MIMO quadratic model used in identification of two-tank system. The results of on-line identification experiments on the two-tank system show that the estimated parameters of each model converge and the output tracking errors are bounded by disturbance bound. But, the quadratic model showed the best convergence.     

Monodisperse polymer/metal composite particles by electroless chemical deposition: Effect of surface functionality of polymer particles

Micron‐sized polymer particles were coated with layers of nickel compounds by plating electrolessly in the presence of aqueous solutions of nickel chloride, sodium hypophosphite, sodium citrate, and ammonium chloride at elevated temperature. The uniform functional polymer particle could be obtained by seeded polymerization. To investigate the effect of surface functionality on the conditions for nickel deposition, the polymer particle was functionalized with the thiol group. From morphological observation, it was found that the mode of nickel deposition was greatly dependent on the surface functionality of the polymer particle. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 420–424, 2003     

Preparation of nano-sized silicon carbide powder using thermal plasma

Nano-sized silicon carbide (SiC) powder was prepared by thermal plasma process using silicon tetrachloride (SiCl₄) and methane (CH₄). The synthesized powder was characterized by X-ray diffraction pattern, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and particle size analyzer. The powder was dominated by β-SiC including some of α-SiC and free carbon species. The quality of the powder was varied with process conditions such as the molar ratio of H/Si and C/Si, and collecting positions. It was known that the conversion to SiC was mainly affected by the addition of hydrogen gas because it promoted the decomposition and reduction of SiCL. CH₄ was easily decomposed to carbon species for the formation of SiC as well as removal of impure oxygen, but excessive carbon suppressed the formation of crystalline SiC and resulted in the solid carbon contamination. The optimum ratio of H/Si was approx. 26 and that of C/Si was 1.1. For collecting positions, the powder collected at the vessel and filter was preferable to that at the reaction tube. The average size of the powder synthesized was estimated to be below 100 nm and uniform in distribution.     

Quantum computation in the decoherence-free subspaces with cavity QED

We present a scheme to implement quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) with four atoms in a single-mode cavity. A four-dimensional DFS is constituted to protect quantum information when the full symmetry of interaction between system and environment is broken in a specific way, and entangling two-qubit logic gates and noncommuting single-qubit gates are implemented in such DFS. The gate fidelity is numerically calculated, and the feasibility of the approximations taken in this work is verified based on the numerical calculations.     

Effect of zeolite in surface discharge plasma on the decomposition of toluene

Toluene was decomposed in a surface discharge plasma reactor packed with various zeolites. The positioning effect of the zeolite bed was also investigated Reactor-B, in which the zeolite bed was located upstream, performed much better than Reactor-A, in which the zeolite bed was located downstream. Furthermore, the decomposition efficiency in Reactor-B increased with the capacity for toluene adsorption on zeolite, while that in Reactor-A did not. The toluene adsorbed in micropores was not decomposed effectively by direct electron impact, but was decomposed by active oxygen species generated in the plasma zone on the zeolite surface. A good correlation was also observed between toluene decomposition and ozone consumption in the downward-type reactor.     

A porous mixed-valent iron MOF exhibiting the acs net: Synthesis, characterization and sorption behavior of Fe3O(F4BDC)3(H2O)3·(DMF)3.5

A new mixed-valent iron MOF, formulated as Fe₃O(F₄BDC)₃(H₂O)₃·(DMF)_3.5 (1), has been synthesized by using a perfluorinated linear dicarboxylate to link trigonal prismatic Fe₃(μ³-O)(O₂C–)₆ clusters. The structure refinement based on single crystal X-ray diffraction data collected from 1 reveals the material exhibits the acs topology with large channels along the crystallographic c-axis. Due to the presence of fluorine atoms the organic link, 2,3,5,6-tetrafluorobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylate (F₄BDC), has a 63° torsion angle between the carboxylate and aromatic planes, resulting in larger channels compared to those in the isoreticular material MOF-235. While few iron-based MOFs have demonstrated porosity, nitrogen and hydrogen sorption experiments carried out at 77 K proved the porosity of outgassed 1, which has a Langmuir surface are of 635 m²/g and a gravimetric capacity of 0.9 wt% of hydrogen at 1 bar.     

Thermal and mechanical properties of the polymers synthesized by the sequential polymerization of propylene and 1‐hexadecene

The block copolymer of poly(1‐hexadecene) (PHD) and polypropylene (PP) was effectively synthesized by the sequential polymerization of propylene and 1‐hexadecene by using highly isospecific TiCl₃/Cp₂Ti(CH₃)₂ (Cp = cyclopentadienyl). The block copolymers had two separate melting temperatures of constituent blocks. The modulus of PHD–PP block copolymer was enhanced as the content of sequentially polymerized PP block was increased. The elongation at break showed positive deviation at the intermediate compositions from the simple additive values of constituent homopolymers. Shape memory effect which utilizes the crystalline PHD block as a reversible phase and the crystalline PP block as a fixed structure was examined. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 1709–1715, 2002; DOI 10.1002/app.10551     

Nonlinear effects on spin waves in3He-4He dilute solutions

Spin dynamics of³He-⁴He dilute solution have been studied in the collisionless regime by NMR methods. In cw NMR experiments, we observed spin waves in a magnetic field gradient. The frequency difference between the first mode and the others obeyed a two-thirds power law in the strength of the field gradient. By using a pulsed NMR method, nonlinear spin dynamics were studied. We observed the large amplitude spin waves after an rf pulse. The frequency of each spin-wave mode depended on the tipping angle. By using the parameter determined in the present experiment, the numerical calculated results based on Leggett-Rice theory are in good agreement with the results of the pulsed NMR experiments.     

On Robust Approximate Feedback Linearization: Control with Two Gain-scaling Factors

In this paper, we consider a problem of global stabilization for a class of approximately feedback linearized nonlinear systems. In order to handle more nonlinearity over the existing results, we provide a new feedback controller with two gain-scaling factors and we show that more nonlinearity can be treated by our control scheme. Moreover, we analytically show that the considered nonlinear systems can be stabilized by the proposed controller. Through comparison practical examples, we illustrate the improved features of our proposed control method.