A series of nanoparticles with phase-separated structures by 1,1-diphenylethene controlled one-step soap-free emulsion copolymerization and their application in drug release

A facile one-step approach to synthesize various phase-separated porous, raspberry-like, flower-like, core–shell and anomalous nanoparticles and nanocapsules via 1,1-diphenylethene (DPE) controlled soap-free emulsion copolymerization of styrene (S) with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), or acrylic acid (AA) is reported. By regulating the mass ratio of S/GMA, transparent polymer solution, porous and anomalous P(S-GMA) particles could be produced. The P(S-GMA) particles turn from flower-like to raspberry-like and then to anomalous structures with smooth surface as the increase of divinylbenzene (DVB) crosslinker. Transparent polymer solution, nanocapsules and core–shell P(S-AA) particles could be obtained by altering the mole ratio of S/AA; anomalous and raspberry-like P(S-AA) particles are produced by adding DVB. The unpolymerized S resulted from the low monomer conversion in the presence of DPE aggregates to form nano-sized droplets, and migrates towards the external surfaces of the GMA-enriched P(S-GMA) particles and the internal bulk of the AA-enriched P(S-AA) particles. The nano-sized droplets function as in situ porogen, porous P(S-GMA) particles and P(S-AA) nanocapsules are produced when the porogen is removed. This novel, facile, one-step method with excellent controllability and reproducibility will inspire new strategies for creating hierarchical phase-separated polymeric particles with various structures by simply altering the species and ratio of comonomers. The drug loading and release experiments on the porous particles and nanocapsules demonstrate that the release of doxorubicin hydrochloride is very slow in weakly basic environment and quick in weakly acidic environment, which enables the porous particles and nanocapsules with promising potential in drug delivery applications.

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A sweeping window method for detection of flaws using an explicit dynamic XFEM and absorbing boundary layers

We present a sweeping window method in elastodynamics for detection of multiple flaws embedded in a large structure. The key idea is to measure the elastic wave propagation generated by a dynamic load within a smaller substructural detecting window domain, given a sufficient number of sensors. Hence, rather than solving the full structure, one solves a set of smaller dynamic problems quickly and efficiently. To this end, an explicit dynamic extended FEM with circular/elliptical void enrichments is implemented to model the propagation of elastic waves in the detecting window domain. To avoid wave reflections, we consider the window as an unbounded domain with the option of full‐infinite/semi‐infinite/quarter‐infinite domains and employ a simple multi‐dimensional absorbing boundary layer technique. A spatially varying Rayleigh damping is proposed to eliminate spurious wave reflections at the artificial model boundaries. In the process of flaw detection, two phases are proposed: (i) pre‐analysis—identification of rough damage regions through a data‐driven approach, and (ii) post‐analysis‐–identification of the true flaw parameters by a two‐stage optimization technique. The ‘pre‐analysis’ phase considers the information contained in the ‘pseudo’ healthy structure and the scattered wave signals, providing an admissible initial guess for the optimization process. Then a two‐stage optimization approach (the simplex method and a damped Gauss–Newton algorithm) is carried out in the ‘post‐analysis’ phase for convergence to the true flaw parameters. A weighted sum of the least squares, of the residuals between the measured and simulated waves, is used to construct the objective function for optimization. Several benchmark examples are numerically illustrated to test the performance of the proposed sweeping methodology for detection of multiple flaws in an unbounded elastic domain. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于13X沸石分子筛/MgCl_2的复合吸附剂性能实验研究

复合吸附剂的吸附性能是吸附制冷循环过程中的一个重要参数,基于测试整体成型复合吸附剂吸附性能的需要,本文设计搭建了一种整体成型吸附剂性能测试装置,对复合吸附剂MgCl_2-13X进行了吸附性能测试实验。结果表明:该实验装置中吸附床外侧底部的温度变化速率较接近吸附床内部底部吸附剂的温度变化速率,二者温度变化速率相差0.01~1.9℃/min,整个吸附和脱附过程二者温度的平均值相差约3.24%,能够满足吸附剂性能测试实验的要求。吸附剂性能测试实验及电镜下吸附剂的微观结构表明:浸泡法制备的复合吸附剂的吸附性能与MgCl_2溶液的浓度有关,MgCl_2能够改善13X沸石分子筛的吸附性能,本实验测得当MgCl_2溶液的浓度为15%时所制得复合吸附剂MX3性能最优,其最大吸附量为0.32 g/g,最大吸附速率0.59 g/min,相比单一吸附剂13X沸石分子筛提高了20%。