100 research outputs found
The Effect of Ferrocene Derivatives on the Thermal Degradation of Polyethylene
The inhibiting action of ferrocene and p-ferrocenyl-aniline on
the kinetics of thermal degradation of polyethylene was investigated
by gravimetry, by measuring the changes in average molecular
weight, by gas chromatography and spectroscopic techniques. The
effect of ferrocene .derivatives is explained by assuming chemical
reactions of the decomposition products (such as cyclopentadiene
and cyclopentadienyl radicals) with macroradicals to occur
Termination Reaction in the Anionic Polymerization of Methacrylonitrile
The anionic polymerization of methacrylonitrile initiated by
triethylphosphine in dimethylformamide was studied. Experimental
evidence for two mechanisms of termination reaction was obtained.
By addition of water or alcohol in polymerizing system the rate of
polymerization and molecular weight of polymethacrylon1itrile
decrease, which proves the termination reaction to be bimolecular
and proceed by interaction of the active carbanion with water or
alcohol. The rate constant for termination of free anions with water
was determined, k~,0 = 2.2 x 102 dm3 moP s-1• The termination
reaction could not be excluded by purification and prolonged drying
of all components of the system, which indicates that the second
mechanism of termination is operative as well. Conductivity measurements gave evidence for a monomolecular spontaneous reaction leading to deactivation of the anion
About low field memory and negative magnetization in semiconductors and polymers
Ginzburg-Landau bulk magnetization of itinerant electrons can provide a
negative effective field in the Weiss model by coupling to localized magnetic
moments. The coupling enforces remnant magnetization, which can be negative or
positive depending on the sample magnetic history. Stable magnetic
susceptibility of coupled nonequilibrium subsystems with magnetization reversal
is always positive. Gauss-scale fields could be expected for switching between
negative and positive remnant moments in semiconductors with coupling at
ambient temperatures. Negative magnetization in ultra-high conducting polymers
is also discussed within the developed framework.Comment: 8 pages, no figure
Polaron and bipolaron dispersion curves in one dimension for intermediate coupling
Bipolaron energies are calculated as a function of wave vector by a
variational method of Gurari appropriate for weak or intermediate coupling
strengths, for a model with electron-phonon interactions independent of phonon
wave vectors and a short-ranged Coulomb repulsion. It is assumed that the bare
electrons have a constant effective mass. A two-parameter trial function is
taken for the relative motion of the two electrons in the bipolaron. Energies
of bipolarons are compared with those of two single polarons as a function of
wave vector for various parameter values. Results for effective masses at the
zone center are also obtained. Comparison is made with data of other authors
for bipolarons in the Hubbard-Holstein model, which differs mainly from the
present model in that it has a tight-binding band structure for the bare
electrons.Comment: 11 pages including six figures. Physical Review B, to be publishe
Effects of polymer polydispersity on the phase behaviour of colloid-polymer mixtures
We study the equilibrium behaviour of a mixture of monodisperse hard sphere
colloids and polydisperse non-adsorbing polymers at their -point, using
the Asakura-Oosawa model treated within the free-volume approximation. Our
focus is the experimentally relevant scenario where the distribution of polymer
chain lengths across the system is fixed. Phase diagrams are calculated using
the moment free energy method, and we show that the mean polymer size at which gas-liquid phase separation first occurs decreases with increasing
polymer polydispersity . Correspondingly, at fixed mean polymer size,
polydispersity favours gas-liquid coexistence but delays the onset of
fluid-solid separation. On the other hand, we find that systems with different
but the same {\em mass-averaged} polymer chain length have nearly
polydispersity-independent phase diagrams. We conclude with a comparison to
previous calculations for a semi-grandcanonical scenario, where the polymer
chemical potentials are imposed, which predicted that fluid-solid coexistence
was over gas-liquid in some areas of the phase diagram. Our results show that
this somewhat counter-intuitive result arose because the actual polymer size
distribution in the system is shifted to smaller sizes relative to the polymer
reservoir distribution.Comment: Changes in v2: sketch in Figure 1 corrected, other figures improved;
added references to experimental work and discussion of mapping from polymer
chain length to effective radiu
Structure of Colloid-Polymer Suspensions
We discuss structural correlations in mixtures of free polymer and colloidal
particles based on a microscopic, 2-component liquid state integral equation
theory. Whereas in the case of polymers much smaller than the spherical
particles the relevant polymer degree of freedom is the center of mass, for
polymers larger than the (nano-) particles conformational rearrangements need
to be considered. They have the important consequence that the polymer
depletion layer exhibits two widely different length scales, one of the order
of the particle radius, the other of the order of the polymer radius or the
polymer density screening length in dilute or semidilute concentrations,
respectively. Their consequences on phase stability and structural correlations
are discussed extensively.Comment: 37 pages, 17 figures; topical feature articl
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