Effect of cellulose acetate/cellulose triacetate ratio on reverse osmosis blend membrane performance

Surface functionalization and modification including the grafting process are effective approaches to improve and enhance the reverse osmosis (RO) membrane performance. This work is aimed to synthesize grafted/crosslinked cellulose acetate (CA)/cellulose triacetate (CTA) blend RO membranes using N-isopropylacrylamide (N-IPAAm) as a monomer and N,N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBAAm) as a crosslinker. The morphology of these membranes was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy and their surface roughness was characterized by atomic force microscopy. The performance of these membranes was evaluated through measuring two major parameters of salt rejection and water flux using RO unit at variable operating pressures. It was noted that the surface average roughness obviously decreased from 148 nm for the pure CA/CTA blend membrane with 2.5% CTA to 110 nm and 87 nm for the grafted N-IPAAm and grafted/crosslinked N-IPAAM/MBAAm/CA/CTA-RO membranes, respectively. Moreover, the contact angle decreased from 51.98° to 47.6° and 43.8° after the grafting and crosslinking process. The salt rejection of the grafted CA/CTA-RO membrane by 0.1% N-IPAAm produced the highest value of 98.12% and the water flux was 3.29 L/m²h at 10 bar.     

电位滴定法快速测定洗衣粉中的聚磷酸盐含量

用强酸分解洗衣粉中的聚磷酸盐，以电位滴定法间接测定其中的聚磷酸盐含量。该法简便，快速，结果可靠。     

Soluble Prokaryotic Overexpression and Purification of Human GM-CSF Using the Protein Disulfide Isomerase b′a′ Domain

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is a member of the colony-stimulating factor (CSF) family, which functions to enhance the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells and other hematopoietic lineages such as neutrophils, dendritic cells, or macrophages. These proteins have thus generated considerable interest in clinical therapy research. A current obstacle to the prokaryotic production of human GM-CSF (hGM-CSF) is its low solubility when overexpressed and subsequent complex refolding processes. In our present study, the solubility of hGM-CSF was examined when combined with three N-terminal fusion tags in five E. coli strains at three different expression temperatures. In the five E. coli strains BL21 (DE3), ClearColi BL21 (DE3), LOBSTR, SHuffle T7 and Origami2 (DE3), the hexahistidine-tagged hGM-CSF showed the best expression but was insoluble in all cases at each examined temperature. Tagging with the maltose-binding protein (MBP) and the b′a′ domain of protein disulfide isomerase (PDIb′a′) greatly improved the soluble overexpression of hGM-CSF at 30 °C and 18 °C. The solubility was not improved using the Origami2 (DE3) and SHuffle T7 strains that have been engineered for disulfide bond formation. Two conventional chromatographic steps were used to purify hGM-CSF from the overexpressed PDIb′a′-hGM-CSF produced in ClearColi BL21 (DE3). In the experiment, 0.65 mg of hGM-CSF was isolated from a 0.5 L flask culture of these E. coli and showed a 98% purity by SDS-PAGE analysis and silver staining. The bioactivity of this purified hGM-CSF was measured at an EC₅₀ of 16.4 ± 2 pM by a CCK8 assay in TF-1 human erythroleukemia cells.     

Biomimetic strain hardening in interpenetrating polymer network hydrogels

In this paper, we present the systematic development of mechanically enhanced interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogels with Young's moduli rivaling those of natural load-bearing tissues. The IPNs were formed by synthesis of a crosslinked poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) network within an end-linked poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) macromonomer network. The strain-hardening behavior of these PEG/PAA IPNs was studied through uniaxial tensile testing and swelling measurements. The interaction between the independently crosslinked networks within the IPN was varied by (1) changing the molecular weight of the PEG macromonomer, (2) controlling the degree of PAA ionization by changing pH, and (3) increasing the polymer content in the PAA network. Young's moduli and the maximum stress-at-break of the swollen hydrogels were normalized on the basis of their polymer content. Strain hardening in the IPNs exhibited a strong dependence on the molecular weight of the first network macromonomer, the pH of the swelling buffer, as well as the polymer content of the second network. The results indicate that the mechanical enhancement of these IPNs is mediated by the strain-induced intensity of physical entanglements between the two networks. The strain can be applied either by mechanical deformation or by changing the pH to modulate the swelling of the PAA network. At pHs below the pK_a of PAA (4.7), entanglements between PEG and PAA are reinforced by interpolymer hydrogen bonds, yielding IPNs with high fracture strength. At pHs above 4.7, a “pre-stressed” IPN with dramatically enhanced modulus is formed due to ionization-induced swelling of the PAA network within a static PEG network. The modulus enhancement ranged from two-fold to over 10-fold depending on the synthesis conditions used. Variation of the network parameters and swelling conditions enabled “tuning” of the hydrogels' physical properties, yielding materials with water content between 58% and 90% water, tensile strength between 2.0 MPa and 12.0 MPa, and initial Young's modulus between 1.0 MPa and 19.0 MPa. Under physiologic pH and salt concentration, these materials attain “biomimetic” values for initial Young's modulus in addition to high tensile strength and water content. As such, they are promising new candidates for artificial replacement of natural tissues such as the cornea, cartilage, and other load-bearing structures.     

Phase evolution,crystal structure,and microwave dielectric properties of gillespite-type ceramics

A gillespite-structured MCuSi₄O₁₀ (M = Ba_1-xSr_x, Sr_1-xCa_x) ceramics with tetrahedral structure (P4/ncc) were prepared by solid-state reaction method. X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetry with differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) were employed to study the phase synthesis process of BaCuSi₄O₁₀. Pure BaCuSi₄O₁₀ phase was obtained at 1075°C and decomposed into BaSiO₃, BaCuSi₂O₆, and SiO₂ when calcined at 1200°C. The relationships between the crystal structure and microwave dielectric properties of MCuSi₄O₁₀ ceramics were revealed based on the Rietveld refinement and P-V-L complex chemical bond theory. The dielectric constant (ε_r) decreased linearly with decreasing total bond susceptibility and ionic polarizability. Quality factor (Q × f) was closely dependent on bond strength and lattice energy. The temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τ_f) was controlled by the stability of [CuO₄]⁶⁻ plane in MCuSi₄O₁₀. Optimum microwave dielectric properties were obtained for SrCuSi₄O₁₀ when sintered at 1100°C for 3 hours with a ε_r of 5.59, a Q × f value of 82 252 GHz, and a τ_f of −41.34 ppm/°C. Thus, SrCuSi₄O₁₀ is a good candidate for millimeter-wave devices.     

Iterative learning control for integrated system of robot and machine tool

This study is concerned with the integrated system of a robot and a machine tool. The major task of robot is loading the workpiece to the machine tool for contour cutting. An iterative learning control (ILC) algorithm is proposed to improve the accuracy of the finished product. The proposed ILC is to modify the input command of the next machining cycle for both robot and machine tool to iteratively enhance the output accuracy of the robot and machine tool. The modified command is computed based on the current tracking/contour error. For the ILC of the robot, tracking error is considered as the control objective to reduce the tracking error of motion path, in particular, the error at the endpoint. Meanwhile, for the ILC of the machine tool, contour error is considered as the control objective to improve the contouring accuracy, which determines the quality of machining. In view of the complicated contour error model, the equivalent contour error instead of the actual contour error is taken as the control objective in this study. One challenge for the integrated system is that there exists an initial state error for the machine tool dynamics, violating the basic assumption of ILC. It will be shown in this study that the effects of initial state error can be significantly reduced by the ILC of the robot. The proposed ILC algorithm is verified experimentally on an integrated system of commercial robot and machine tool. The experimental results show that the proposed ILC can achieve more than 90% of reduction on both the RMS tracking error of the robot and the RMS contour error of the machine tool within six learning iterations. The results clearly validate the effectiveness of the proposed ILC for the integrated system.