Sharif Digital Repository

Monomer grafting, a unique technique for polysaccharide modification, is always performed under inert (e.g., N2) atmosphere. This work is the first report related to evaluating the possibility and efficiency of the grafting of acrylonitrile (AN) onto starch in presence of oxygen. Thus, corn starch (in both granular and gelatinized states) as well as soluble starch were grafted by AN using a ceric-carbohydrate redox initiating system. Graft copolymerizations were performed under nitrogen, air, and oxygen atmospheres at similar conditions. Grafting occurrence was verified using chemical and spectral proofs. The polymerization mechanism and kinetics were investigated by recording the... 

Acrylonitrile (AN) was grafted onto various natural and modified polysaccharides (i.e., gum arabic, gum tragacanth, xanthan gum, sodium alginate, chitosan, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose, methyl cellulose) by using ceric-carbohydrate redox initiating system. After overcoming practical problems, mainly from the high viscosity of the aqueous solutions of the different substrates, the graft copolymerization reactions were run either in air or in N2 atmosphere under similar conditions. Grafting was confirmed using chemical and spectral (FTIR) proofs. The reactions were kinetically investigated using semi-empirical expressions and time-temperature profiles. An anomalous... 

Various natural and modified polysaccharides (i.e. arabic gum, tragacanth gum, xanthan gum, sodium alginate, chitosan, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose, methyl cellulose) were modified using ceric-initiated graft polymerization of acrylonitrile under inert atmosphere. Grafting was confirmed using spectral (FT-IR) proofs. The grafting parameters were determined by conventional methods. Thermal characteristics of the homopolymer-free copolymers were studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under nitrogen atmosphere. The major thermal transitions as well as the activation energy of the major decomposition stages were... 

An eight-step synthetic strategy was followed to prepare a series of novel azobenzene-containing methacrylate monomers bearing spiroacetal-norbornene moiety and methylene spacers. Thus, the adduct 2, obtained from cyclopentadiene and acrolein, was converted to 1,3-diol 3. The diol was acetalized with nitrobenzaldehyde 4 under microwave irradiation to obtain nitro compound 5 that was then reduced to amino compound 6. Diazonium salt of 6 was coupled with phenol to produce phenolic compound 7 which was then reacted with n-dibromoalkanes (n=2, 4, 6, 8, 10) to yield bromo compounds 9a–e. Nucleophilic substitution reaction of the bromo compounds with lithium methacrylate produced the methacrylic... 

Chitosan was modified with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) through ceric-initiated graft copolymerization. The chitosan-g-PAN product was saponified using sodium hydroxide aqueous solution to prepare a novel superabsorbent hydrogel, H-chitoPAN. Duration of completing the saponification reaction as well as the water absorbency capacity of the hydrogel was decreased with increasing the alkaline concentration. Either chitosan-g-PAN or H-chitoPAN was characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and DSC, TGA, and DTG thermal methods. According to FTIR, all the nitrile groups were converted to carboxylate and carboxamide groups. Both modified chitosans exhibited enhanced thermal stability over chitosan. The... 

A non-terminated, low molecular weight, highly crystalline, linear aliphatic polyester was successfully synthesized via ester-interchange polycondensation of cis-2-butene-1,4-diol and diethyl oxalate by using of lead (II) oxide as the catalyst. No decarboxylation occurred during the optimized polymerization. Structural and Chemical identification was performed by elemental analysis, FTIR, 'H-NMR, and Mass spectroscopy. Some macrocyle species were detected in the product, according to GPC. Fragmentation patterns were suggested for the main m/e's of the mass spectrum. Thermal characterization was performed by DSC and TGA. It was found that the overall thermal stability of the polyester is... 

Tetraphenylthiophene diamine (TPTDA) was prepared through a modified three-step route to achieve an improved overall yield. TPTDA reacted with succinic, adipic, suberic, sebasic, and fumaric acids via the Yamazaki phosphorylation method to yield novel partially aromatic polyamides (TPT series). A counterpart polyamide series based on p-phenylene diamine (Ph series) was also synthesized under the same conditions. All of the polymers were characterized by means of spectrochemical (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and 13C-NMR) and thermal (differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric) methods of analysis. Solubility of TPT polyamides was... 

The opinions of other people are an essential piece of information for making informed decisions. With the increase in using the Internet, today the web becomes an excellent source of user's viewpoints in different domains. However, in one hand, the growing volume of opinionated text and on the other hand, complexity caused by contrast in user opinion, makes it almost impossible to read all of these reviews and make an informed decision. These requirements have encouraged a new line of research on mining user reviews, which is called opinion mining. User's viewpoints could change during the time, and this is an important issue for companies. One of the most challenging problems of opinion... 

In this paper, an approach is proposed to estimate the location of leakages in liquid transmission lines with a high accuracy. First, the mathematical model is analyzed and a closedform solution is provided for the partial differential equations of the pipeline. Next, the leakage location is calculated using the closed-form solution. The calculations are applied to various leakages and are extended to a case in which the pressure and flowrate do not converge to constant values. Considering a singleleakage pipeline system, a linear observer is utilized to estimate the leakage location with reduced errors. The simulation results are presented and the proposed method is verified by changing the... 

In this study, a homotopy analysis method was used to obtain analytic solutions to predict dynamic pull-in instability of an electrostatically-actuated microbeam. The nonlinear describing equation of a microbeam affected by an electric field, including the fringing field effect, was obtained based on strain gradient elasticity, couple stress, and classical theory. Influences of different parameters on dynamic pull-in instability were investigated. The equation of motion of a double-clamped microbeam was discretized and solved by using Galerkin's method via mode summation. The resulting non-linear differential equation was also solved by using the Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM). The influence...