Preparation of a reusable and pore size controllable porous polymer monolith and its catalysis of biodiesel synthesis.

A sulfonated porous polymer monolith (PPM-SO3H) has been prepared via the polymerisation of styrene (St) and divinyl benzene (DVB) with organic microspheres as pore-forming agents, followed by sulfonation with concentrated sulfuric acid. It was characterized by acid-base titration in order to determine its acid density, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and thermogravimetric analysis (TG). The PPM-SO3H showed an acid density of 1.89 mmol g-1 and pore cavities with an average diameter of 870 nm. The catalytic activity of PPM-SO3H in practical biodiesel synthesis from waste fatty acids was investigated and the main reaction parameters were optimized through orthogonal experiment. The best reaction conditions obtained for the optimization of methanol to oil ratio, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature and reaction time were 1 : 1, 20%, 80 °C and 8 h, respectively. PPM-SO3H showed excellent catalytic activity. In biodiesel synthesis, the esterification rate of PPM-SO3H is 96.9%, which is much higher than that of commercial poly(sodium-p-styrenesulfonate) (esterification rate 29.0%). The PPM-SO3H can be reused several times without significant loss of catalytic activity; the esterification rate was still 90.8% after 6 cycles. The pore size of this porous polymer monolith can be controlled. The dimension and shape of this porous polymer monolith were also adjustable by choosing a suitable polymerisation container.

The role of local-geometrical-orders on the growth of dynamic-length-scales in glass-forming liquids.

The precise nature of complex structural relaxation as well as an explanation for the precipitous growth of relaxation time in cooling glass-forming liquids are essential to the understanding of vitrification of liquids. The dramatic increase of relaxation time is believed to be caused by the growth of one or more correlation lengths, which has received much attention recently. Here, we report a direct link between the growth of a specific local-geometrical-order and an increase of dynamic-length-scale as the atomic dynamics in metallic glass-forming liquids slow down. Although several types of local geometrical-orders are present in these metallic liquids, the growth of icosahedral ordering is found to be directly related to the increase of the dynamic-length-scale. This finding suggests an intriguing scenario that the transient icosahedral connectivity could be the origin of the dynamic-length-scale in metallic glass-forming liquids.

The logarithmic relaxation process and the critical temperature of liquids in nano-confined states.

The logarithmic relaxation process is the slowest of all relaxation processes and is exhibited by only a few molecular liquids and proteins. Bulk salol, which is a glass-forming liquid, is known to exhibit logarithmic decay of intermediate scattering function for the ß-relaxation process. In this article, we report the influence of nanoscale confinements on the logarithmic relaxation process and changes in the microscopic glass-transition temperature of salol in the carbon and silica nanopores. The generalized vibrational density-of-states of the confined salol indicates that the interaction of salol with ordered nanoporous carbon is hydrophilic in nature whereas the interaction with silica surfaces is more hydrophobic. The mode-coupling theory critical temperature derived from the QENS data shows that the dynamic transition occurs at much lower temperature in the carbon pores than in silica pores. The results of this study indicate that, under nano-confinements, liquids that display logarithmic ß-relaxation phenomenon undergo a unique glass transition process.

[The change of immunoglobulin in patients with eyeball perforation at high altitude].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the change of tear immune function on eyeballs with perforating injury at high altitude. METHODS: In 51 patients (53 eyes) with eyeball perforating injury at high altitude (sea level 3658 m), by using single agar immune diffusion test, IgG, IgA, IgM, C(3) and C(4) values of tears were separately measured before and after clinical cure. RESULTS: The Ig values of tears increased universally. The IgA value increased especially in the 7th day. The IgG and IgM value in the serum increased in the 3rd day after injury (P < 0.05), and the IgG, IgA and IgM of tears increased especially on the 7th day (P < 0.01). The C(3) and C(4) value of tears did not change significantly (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The change of Ig value is a useful detective means to evaluate the treatment effect.