Surface modification of Natural Rubber by ion implantation: Evidence for implant doping

Ion implantation is one of the most powerful and well-known technique for surface modification in polymers. Thin films of Natural Rubber were modified by the implantation of 60 keV N⁺ ions to the fluences of 10¹¹–10¹⁵ cm⁻². The electrical conductivity measurements of irradiated sample show 10 orders of magnitude compared to pristine state. Along with conductivity change there was a noticeable change in color to a dense shiny black for the most highly conducting films. The analysis of temperature dependence of dc electrical conductivity data reveals a three-dimensional variable range hopping mechanism. The microstructural evolution of the virgin and ion-beam modified samples was investigated by spectroscopic analysis such as UV/Vis & FTIR. These spectral studies gave evidence for the production of conjugate double bonds, which is a clear cut indication of implant doping. This is an important result since ion implantation usually does not produce doping in polymeric materials and only a few reports about the possibility of implant doping in polymers are available. The significant aspect of this study is that this confirms, the Natural Rubber’s potential to be used as a microelectronic device material. Also an attempt has been made to compare the conductivity enhancement in Natural Rubber by chemical and implant doping.     

On the toughening of unsaturated polyester resins using nadimide end-functionalized polyether telechelics

Copoly-propylene glycol (terephthalate–maleate) based unsaturated polyester resin (UPER) was modified with nadimide end-capped polyether telechelics namely, polypropylene glycol (PPG with molecular weight 2000, 1000, 400 g/mol), polytetramethylene oxide (PTMO with molecular weight 2000 g/mol) and polyethylene glycol (PEG with molecular weight 2000 g/mol) (NPPG/NPTMO/NPEG). The telechelic NPPG/NPTMO/NPEG were synthesized from the corresponding polyols (hydroxy telechelics) by reaction with 4-nadimido benzoyl chloride. These derivatives were characterized by chemical and spectral methods. Blends of UPER with varying amounts of NPPG/NPTMO/NPEG were prepared. Blending boosted the cohesive energy through enhanced crosslinking as reflected in the gel content of the cured matrices done in separate studies. It increased the fracture characteristics tremendously. The addition of 2.5 phr of the nadimide end functional polyether gave the maximum toughness. The crosslink density showed an initial increase on blending, but further addition of the telechelics did not make any change. The properties of the prepared blends were compared with maleimide end-capped polyether toughened UPE resins. It was concluded that the toughening effect of the polyether additive depends not only on its concentration but also on its distribution in the matrix as dictated by its reactivity ratio with styrene. The high reactivity of the nadimide groups did not create an ambiance good enough to get an acceptable distribution of the polyether segments conducive for a tough matrix. Whereas the maleimide end-capped polyether provides better toughening efficiency.     

Comparative study on the reachable workspaces of regular and irregular axially symmetric hexapod robots

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - Six-legged hexapod walking robots are well-known for their intrinsic stability during navigation and 6-DoF object manipulation. The robot must be...     

Generic Direct Approach for Decoding Turbo Codes Using Probability Density Based Reliability Model

Journal of Communications Technology and Electronics - The probability of the received bit values has been directly used in the performance enhanced reliability based direct decoding algorithm for...     

Novolac-Polydimethyl Siloxane networks through click chemistry: Thermal and Thermophysical characterization

Polydimethyl siloxane combs projecting from a novolac stem were synthesized using click reaction of azide-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (AZ-PDMS), and novolac propargyl ether (NPE) under ambient (30°C) conditions. Dynamic mechanical analyses (DMA) indicated the transition of soft segments at nearly −100°C and that of the hard segments in the range of 25°C-30°C. The hybrid novolac-siloxane networks have been found to possess an elongation at break of 100%–260%. Thermal degradation behavior of the networks of different crosslink densities was studied using TGA and pyrolysis GC-MS. Thermogravimetry revealed an anaerobic char residue of 23%–40% at 900°C. Further rise in temperature up to 1500°C has been observed to result in hardly 1% reduction in the char yield/ceramic residue, thus attributing to the presence of high char-yielding aromatic part. The ceramic residue obtained at 1500°C under argon atmosphere was analyzed using FTIR, Raman, and XRD. XRD studies implied formation of βSiC, and SiO₂. Morphology of the ceramics conformed to nanowires with diameters in the range of 20-100 nm. The nanowire consisted of mainly SiOC as attested by EDS analysis.     

Toward “Rubbery” nanoparticles

The synthesis of electrically Conducting Natural Rubber (CNR) nanoparticles from natural rubber (cis 1, 4 polyisoprene) by a simple chemical doping technique is reported for the first time. Much before the establishment of conjugation as a precondition for polymers to be conducting a typical nonconjugated polymer like cis 1,4 polyisoprene was shown to develop intrinsic conductivity on doping. However, the possibility of developing conducting nanoparticles of natural rubber by doping has never been explored. Doping of natural rubber solution with Antimony pentchloride is found to lead to the formation of nanosized rubber particles with improved thermal stability and lower degradation characteristics than that of pristine rubber. Transmission electron microscopy and Dynamic Light Scattering experiments revealed a highly uniform dispersion of the particles with sizes in the range of 4 nm. The doped nanoparticles are found to retain “rubbery” properties of natural rubber and therefore these can be rightly termed as Rubber Nano particles. The development of nanoparticles of rubber assumes great significance in that it would lead to hitherto unknown applications for natural rubber in micro applications‐like sensors, and optoelectronics devices to macro applications such as compatible reinforcing fillers for elastomers and plastics to replace conventional fillers like carbon particles. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Ozone for Plant Pathological Applications

The effect of ozone on Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, a bacterium causing leaf blight disease in Paddy (Oryza sativa), was studied in culture. Viability of this pathogen was lost by flushing ozone at a flow rate of 300 ml/min for 3 minutes in culture condition. The inhibitory effect was dependant on cell concentration and time. With a cell concentration of 0.008 OD at 540 nm, the inhibition of the bacterium was total and no growth was observed in nutrient agar plates even after 36 hrs. With higher concentrations of cells (0.08 OD and above) the bacterium survived, though there was a bacteriostatic effect initially. Conductivity of the cell suspension increased after ozone treatment owing to altered cell membrane permeability and subsequent release of cellular contents. As the bacterium is seed borne, washing the paddy seeds with ozonized water would help control the bacterial blight of rice, the most serious disease of rice in Asia.     

Scrutinizing the influence of peroxide crosslinking of dynamically vulcanized EVA/TPU blends with special reference to cable sheathing applications

A novel thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV) based on the blends of ethylene vinyl acetate/thermoplastic polyurethane (EVA/TPU) at various blend ratios has been developed via dynamic vulcanization at 180 °C using di‐(2‐tert‐butyl peroxy isopropyl) benzene (DTBPIB) peroxide as the cross‐linking agent. Modification of the EVA/TPU blends via dynamic crosslinking significantly improves the tensile strength and modulus of the system and the improvement is more significant for EVA/TPU 50/50 and 60/40 blends. AFM study shows that crosslinked EVA particles are dispersed in the continuous TPU matrix and the dispersed EVA domain sizes are relatively smaller in EVA/TPU 50/50 and 60/40 blends leading to good mechanical properties. FTIR spectroscopy has been used to characterize the specific chemical changes occurring due to dynamic vulcanization. This TPV has excellent retention of physico‐mechanical properties even after reprocessing twice and the blends also have very good thermal resistance as indicated by aging study. The samples were found to exhibit remarkable improvement in oil resistance property as compared to their uncrosslinked counterpart. The creep behavior of the blends significantly improves after dynamic crosslinking and blends with higher TPU content show better creep resistance. Volume resistivity of all the peroxide vulcanized blends is in the range of 10¹³ ohm cm, which is suitable for cable sheathing application. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43706.     

Accelerating earthquake simulations on general‐purpose graphics processors

Parallelization strategies are presented for Virtual Quake, a numerical simulation code for earthquakes based on topologically realistic systems of interacting earthquake faults. One of the demands placed upon the simulation is the accurate reproduction of the observed earthquake statistics over three to four decades. This requires the use of a high‐resolution fault model in computations, which demands computational power that is well beyond the scope of off‐the‐shelf multi‐core CPU computers. However, the recent advances in general‐purpose graphic processing units have the potential to address this problem at moderate cost increments. A functional decomposition of Virtual Quake is performed, and opportunities for parallelization are discussed in this work. Computationally intensive modules are identified, and these are implemented on graphics processing units, significantly speeding up earthquake simulations. In the current best case scenario, a computer with six graphics processing units can simulate 500 years of fault activity in California at 1.5 km × 1.5 km element resolution in less than 1 hour, whereas a single CPU requires more than 2 days to perform the same simulation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.