Traditionally, polymers and macromolecular components used in the foam industry are mostly derived from petroleum. The current transition to a bio-economy creates demand for the use of more renewable feedstocks. Soybean oil is a vegetable oil, composed mainly of triglycerides, that is suitable material for foam production. In this study, acrylated epoxidized soybean oil and variable amounts of ...

In this study three chemical agents Amino-propyl-triethoxy-silane (APS), sorbitol ended PLA oligomer (SPLA) and Hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) were identified to be used as coupling agents to react with the phosphate glass fibre (PGF) reinforcement and the polylactic acid (PLA) polymer matrix of the composite. Composites were prepared with short chopped strand fibres (l = 20 mm, ϕ = 20 µm) in...

fibre data links: present progress and future prospects’. Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. Plastic Optical Fibre and Applications, 1993, pp. 8-13 5 K O I K E , ~ . : ‘High bandwidth, low loss polymer fibres’. Proc. ECOC‘92, 1992, Vol. 2, pp. 679486 6 ISHIGURE, T., NIHEI, E., and KOIKE, Y.: ‘Graded-index polymer optical fibre for high-speed data communication’, Appl. Opt. , 1994, 33, (19), pp. 42614266 4 WA...

A long strand of DNA is wrapped around the core histone and forms a nucleosome. Although the nucleosome has long been assumed to be folded into 30-nm chromatin fibres, their structural details and how such fibres are organised into a nucleus or mitotic chromosome remain unclear. When we observed frozen hydrated (vitrified) human mitotic cells using cryo-electron microscopy, which enables direct...

The adhesive pads of geckos provide control of normal adhesive force by controlling the applied shear force. This frictional adhesion effect is one of the key principles used for rapid detachment in animals running up vertical surfaces. We developed polypropylene microfibre arrays composed of vertical, 0.3 microm radius fibres with elastic modulus of 1 GPa which show this effect for the first t...

Sub-micron sized alumina fibres were fabricated by electrospinning and calcination of a polymer template fibre. In the calcination step, different controlled temperature heating cycles were conducted to obtain fibres of different crystalline structures. Their biodurabilities were tested at pH 7.4 with lung airway epithelial lining fluid or serum ultrafiltrate (SUF) and at pH 4.5 with macrophage...

In this investigation, studies are carried out on the mechanical properties of hybrid polymer composites. Hybrid composites can reach a better combination of both artificial and natural fibre properties. Different weight percentages of jute fibres were hybridised with coconut sheath to produce the composites through compression moulding. Composites were produced using untreated and treated fibr...

Anisotropic nanoparticles prepared from block copolymers are of growing importance as building blocks for the creation of synthetic hierarchical materials. However, the assembly of these structural units is generally limited to the use of amphiphilic interactions. Here we report a simple, reversible coordination-driven hierarchical self-assembly strategy for the preparation of micron-scale fibr...

Multifunctional capability, flexible design, rugged lightweight construction and self-powered operation are desired attributes for electronics that directly interface with the human body or with advanced robotic systems. For these applications, piezoelectric materials, in forms that offer the ability to bend and stretch, are attractive for pressure/force sensors and mechanical energy harvesters...