Fu, Xiaobo; Jia, Wenxia; Li, Xiaoting; Wang, Yaming; Wang, Zhen; Liu, Chuntai; Shen, Changyu; Shao, Chunguang
Phase transitions of the rapid-compression-induced mesomorphic isotactic polypropylene under high-pressure annealing
The mesomorphic isotactic polypropylene was prepared by rapid compression instead of the common method of temperature quenching, and their phase transition under high pressure was investigated in depth by combining wide-angle X-ray diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering, and differential scanning calorimetry techniques. It was found that annealing under pressure can promote…
Scalable preparation of alternating block copolymer particles with inverse bicontinuous mesophases
Lv, Fei; An, Zesheng; Wu, Peiyi
Block copolymer particles with controlled morphologies play a vital role in materials science and nanotechnology. Here the authors show a scalable preparation of amphiphilic alternating block polymer particles with inverse bicontinuous mesophases via polymerization-induced…
Using the singular value decomposition to extract 2D correlation functions from scattering patterns
Bender, Philipp; Zákutná, Dominika; Disch, Sabrina; Marcano, Lourdes; Venero, Diego Alba; Honecker, Dirk
We apply the truncated singular value decomposition (SVD) to extract the underlying 2D correlation functions from small-angle scattering patterns. We test the approach by transforming the simulated data of ellipsoidal particles and show that also in case of anisotropic patterns (i.e. aligned ellipsoids) the derived correlation functions correspond to the…
Directed Assembly of Hierarchical Supramolecular Block Copolymers: A Strategy To Create Donor–Acceptor Charge-Transfer Stacks
Deepthi, Krishnan; Amal, Raj R. B.; Rajeev, V. R.; Unni, K. N. Narayanan; Gowd, E. Bhoje
Macromolecules, 2019, vol 52, 7, pp. 2889-2899DOI:10.1021/acs.macromol.8b02448Visit the full articleBack to the overview
Self-Assembly Investigations of Sulfonated Poly(methyl methacrylate- block -styrene) Diblock Copolymer Thin Films
Piñón-Balderrama, Claudia; Leyva-Porras, César; Olayo-Valles, Roberto; Revilla-Vázquez, Javier; Schubert, Ulrich S.; Guerrero-Sanchez, Carlos; Bonilla-Cruz, José
Poly(methyl methacrylate- block -styrene) block copolymers (BCs) of low dispersity were selectively sulfonated on the styrenic segment. Several combinations of degree of polymerization and volume fraction of each block were investigated to access different self-assembled morphologies. Thin films of the sulfonated block copolymers were prepared by spin-coating and…
Electrospun PCL-protein scaffolds coated by pyrrole plasma polymerization
Cruz, Yeyzon; Muñoz, Efrén; Gomez-Pachón, E. Y.; Morales-Corona, Juan; Olayo-Lortia, Jesús; Olayo, Roberto; Olayo-Valles, Roberto
Polymeric scaffolds prepared from polycaprolactone (PCL), PCL-collagen and PCL-elastin were prepared by electrospinning. The scaffolds were coated by plasma polymerization of pyrrole doped with iodine, to improve cellular adhesion and fibroblast proliferation. The morphology, composition, and crystalline structure of the scaffolds were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM),…
Multiscale Self-Assembly of a Phenyl-Flanked Diketopyrrolopyrrole Derivative: A Solution-Processable Building Block for π-Conjugated Supramolecular Polymers
Wang, Kai; Bohra, Hassan; Gonçalves, Rui A.; Bhatnagar, Harshangda; Wu, Yingjie; Wang, Xiaochen; Wang, Zheng; Wei, Xin; Lam, Yeng Ming; Wang, Mingfeng
We report a solution-processable π-conjugated molecular building block (denoted as PhDPP) consisting of a rigid and planar core of phenyl-flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole and “soft” branched alkoxy chains that endow the solubility in a variety of organic solvents. Intermolecular hydrogen bonding in PhDPP was revealed in nonpolar solvents above a threshold of…
Highly compressive and stretchable poly(ethylene glycol) based hydrogels synthesised using pH-responsive nanogels without free-radical chemistry
Nguyen, Nam T.; Milani, Amir H.; Jennings, James; Adlam, Daman J.; Freemont, Anthony J.; Hoyland, Judith A.; Saunders, Brian R.
Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) based hydrogels are amongst the most studied synthetic hydrogels. However, reports on PEG-based hydrogels with high mechanical strength are limited. Herein, a class of novel, well-defined PEG-based nanocomposite hydrogels with tunable mechanical strength are synthesised via ring-opening reactions of diglycidyl ethers with carboxylate ions. The pH responsive…
Hard–Soft Carbon Composite Anodes with Synergistic Sodium Storage Performance
Xie, Fei; Xu, Zhen; Jensen, Anders C. S.; Au, Heather; Lu, Yaxiang; Araullo‐Peters, Vicente; Drew, Alan J.; Hu, Yong-Sheng; Titirici, Maria-Magdalena
A series of hard–soft carbon composite materials is produced from biomass and oil waste and applied as low-cost anodes for sodium-ion batteries to study the fundamentals behind the dependence of Na storage on their structural features. A good reversible capacity of 282 mAh g−1 is obtained at a current density…
A high-performance BaTiO 3 -grafted-GO-laden poly(ethylene oxide)-based membrane as an electrolyte for all-solid lithium-batteries
Angulakshmi, N.; Prasanna Kar, Goutam; Bose, Suryasarathi; Bhoje Gowd, E.; Thomas, Sabu; Manuel Stephan, A.
Nanocomposite polymer electrolytes (NCPEs) comprising poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), barium titanate-grafted-graphene oxide (BaTiO3-g-GO) and lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl imide) (LiTFSI) were prepared by a simple hot-press technique. An increase of two orders of magnitude in the ionic conductivity was achieved upon incorporation of BaTiO3-g-GO in the polymeric matrix even at 0 °C. The