Extensional Flow-Induced Concentration Gradient in Entangled Polymer Solutions with Chemically Identical Species.

Entangled polymer solutions show different rheological behavior from melts in fast extensional flow. This discrepancy is not expected according to the classic tube model and is an urgent issue to be solved in polymer physics. While in the tube model the polymer concentration is considered to be homogeneous, we show that extensional flow-induced concentration gradient may happen in polymer solutions even with chemically identical solutes and solvents.

Functional characterization of MaEXPA11 and its roles in response to biotic and abiotic stresses in mulberry.

Mulberry is a traditional economic tree with various values in sericulture, ecology, food industry and medicine. Expansins (EXPs) are known as cell wall expansion related proteins and have been characterized to involve in plant development and responses to diverse stresses. In present study, twenty EXP and expansin-like (EXL) genes were identified in mulberry.

Fully biodegradable polylactide foams with ultrahigh expansion ratio and heat resistance for green packaging.

Long chain branching (LCB) structures are efficiently introduced into polylactide (PLA) by employing sustainable soybean oil (SO) under the initiation of trace amount of cyclic peroxide, which displays robust foamability and heat resistance. It is discovered that with the introduction of 0.6 wt% SO, the expansion ratio and Vicat softening temperature of LCB PLA are sharply raised to 75.

Vorticity-Aligned Droplet Bands in Sheared Immiscible Polymer Blends Induced by Solid Particles.

The spatiotemporal organization of complex fluids under flow can be strongly affected by incorporating solid particles. Here, we report that a monolayer of interfacially active microspheres preferentially wetted by the matrix phase can bridge droplets into vorticity-aligned bands in immiscible polymer blends at intermediate particle concentrations and low shear rates. Strong particle bridging ability and the formation of rigid anisotropic droplet bands with a negligible inertia effect in the Newtonian matrix are suggested to be responsible for the vorticity orientation of droplet bands during slow shear flow, which could be understood based on Jeffery orbit theory in the framework of fluid mechanics and strong confinement effect acted by shear walls and adjacent bands.

Synthesis of poly(ionic liquid) for trifunctional epoxy resin with simultaneously enhancing the toughness, thermal and dielectric performances.

Poly(ionic liquid) (PIL), integrating the characteristics of both polymers and ionic liquid, is synthesized and employed to modify diglycidyl-4,5-epoxy-cyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylate (TDE-85). With the addition of PIL, the fracture toughness, and thermal and dielectric performances of TDE-85 were discovered to be simultaneously improved, meanwhile the tensile modulus and strength is increased. Upon an optimal loading of 3 wt% PIL, the critical stress intensity factor ( ), tensile modulus and strength are raised by 92.

Morphology Mapping of Nanoparticle-Filled Immiscible Polymer Blends in Flow: The Existence of a Critical Ratio between Nanoparticle Concentration and Droplet Concentration.

The delicate flow-induced morphology of immiscible polypropylene/polystyrene blends in the presence of silica nanoparticles (NPs) is investigated in a multiparameter space. The morphology map constructed based on in situ morphology observation reveals that a critical ratio of NP concentration to droplet concentration, which strongly depends on the NP surface chemistries and the ratio of the NP concentration to the droplet concentration, exists. Below or above the critical ratio, the NPs display diverse effects on the morphology (promote or suppress droplet coalescence).

Exfoliated Graphene Leads to Exceptional Mechanical Properties of Polymer Composite Films.

Polymers with superior mechanical properties are desirable in many applications. In this work, polyethylene (PE) films reinforced with exfoliated thermally reduced graphene oxide (TrGO) fabricated using a roll-to-roll hot-drawing process are shown to have outstanding mechanical properties. The specific ultimate tensile strength and Young's modulus of PE/TrGO films increased monotonically with the drawing ratio and TrGO filler fraction, reaching up to 3.

Toward simultaneous toughening and reinforcing of trifunctional epoxies by low loading flexible reactive triblock copolymers.

Flexible reactive poly(glycidyl methacrylate)--poly(propylene glycol)--poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (GPG) and nonreactive poly(ethylene glycol)--poly(propylene glycol)--poly(ethylene glycol) (EPE80) were utilized to toughen a trifunctional epoxy (diglycidyl 4, 5-epoxycyclohexane-1, 2-dicarboxylate, TDE-85). In comparison with the nonreactive EPE80 and reactive GPG92 with long reactive blocks ( ), the incorporation of reactive GPG83 with short improved the comprehensive mechanical properties of the epoxy. Upon an optimal GPG83 loading of 2.

Controlling the Orientation of Droplets in Ellipsoid-Filled Polymeric Emulsions with Particle Parameters and Flow Conditions.

The effect of particle parameters [aspect ratio (AR) and concentration] and flow conditions (gap spacing and shear rate) on droplet orientation deformation behavior in polystyrene (PS) particle-filled binary polymeric emulsions is investigated by using a rheo-optical technique and confocal microscopy. Interesting vorticity orientation behavior is achieved by tailoring experimental conditions to yield rigid anisotropic droplets during slow confined shear flow. PS ellipsoids with a high AR are found to reside both at the fluid interface in a monolayer side-on state and inside droplets, leading to the formation of rigid anisotropic droplets because of the interfacial/bulk jamming effect at appropriate particle concentrations.

Morphology Evolution of Polymer Blends under Intense Shear During High Speed Thin-Wall Injection Molding.

The morphology evolution under shear during different processing is indeed an important issue regarding the phase morphology control as well as final physical properties of immiscible polymer blends. High-speed thin wall injection molding (HSTWIM) has recently been demonstrated as an effective method to prepare alternating multilayered structure. To understand the formation mechanism better and explore possible phase morphology for different blends under HSTWIM, the relationship between the morphology evolution of polymer blends based on polypropylene (PP) under HSTWIM and some intrinsic properties of polymer blends, including viscosity ratio, interfacial tension, and melt elasticity, is systematically investigated in this study.

Functionalized Graphene Enables Highly Efficient Solar Thermal Steam Generation.

The ability to efficiently utilize solar thermal energy to enable liquid-to-vapor phase transition has great technological implications for a wide variety of applications, such as water treatment and chemical fractionation. Here, we demonstrate that functionalizing graphene using hydrophilic groups can greatly enhance the solar thermal steam generation efficiency. Our results show that specially functionalized graphene can improve the overall solar-to-vapor efficiency from 38% to 48% at one sun conditions compared to chemically reduced graphene oxide.

Sequence control of phase separation and dewetting in PS/PVME blend thin films by changing molecular weight of PS.

The morphology evolution mechanism of polystyrene (PS)/poly (vinyl methyl ether) (PVME) blend thin films with different PS molecular weights (M) was studied. It was found that the morphology evolution was closely related to the molecular weight asymmetry between PS and PVME. In the film where M(PS) ≈ M(PVME), dewetting happened at the interface between the bottom layer and substrate after SD phase separation.

Thermal oxidative and ozone oxidative stabilization effect of hybridized functional graphene oxide in a silica-filled solution styrene butadiene elastomer.

Hybridization of modified functional graphene oxide (fGO) in silica-filled solution styrene butadiene rubber (SSBR) endows preferable tensile and dynamic properties before and after thermal oxidative aging, and similar mechanical hysteresis performance compared with the composites without fGO. The preventing mechanism of fGO is attributed to its intrinsic peroxy radical scavenging and gas barrier abilities, which significantly reduces the peroxy radical concentration and oxygen permeability of nanocomposites and then prolongs oxidative induction time (OIT), characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The ozone resisting effect of different loadings of fGO on nanocomposites have also been investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) after ozonization under 50 ppm ozone concentration.

Vorticity Deformation in Polymeric Emulsions Induced by Anisotropic Ellipsoids.

We study the influence of particle shape on shear-induced droplet deformation in polymeric emulsions. During shearing, droplets become elongated and rotate periodically about their major axes while aligning along the vorticity direction in ellipsoid-filled emulsions, while similar behavior is not observed in the pristine, microsphere-filled or ellipsoid-filled inverse systems. Based on the Jeffery orbit theory, the formation of anisotropic droplets with extremely small Reynolds number due to arrested coalescence in Newtonian matrix and strong confinement effect are suggested to be responsible for the vorticity alignment of droplets during slow shearing.

Droplet coalescence and clustering behavior in microsphere-filled polymeric emulsions under shear flow: the key role of asymmetric interfacial affinities.

The flow-induced spatial organization of the droplet phase in ternary polymeric emulsions consisting of two Newtonian fluids, namely polyisobutylene (PIB) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), in the presence of a small amount of solid polystyrene (PS) microspheres are explored by direct flow visualization. The results suggest that the asymmetric affinities of interfacially located PS microspheres to two fluid components lead to diverse flow-induced morphologies in PIB/PDMS blends with different compositions. In 10/90 blends where microspheres are preferentially wetted by the PIB droplets, significantly promoted coalescence of PIB droplets is observed.

Suppression of wetting-induced percolation-to-droplet transition in near-critical polymer blend films by nanoparticles.

A new kind of percolation-to-droplet transition (PDT) caused by selective wetting was identified in near-critical polymer blend films. Nanoscale particles proved to possess superior ability in suppressing this morphological transition.