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Polymer Surface Engineering Via Thiol-Mediated Reactions, Ryan Matthew Hensarling
Polymer Surface Engineering Via Thiol-Mediated Reactions, Ryan Matthew Hensarling
Dissertations
Synthesis of polymer brushes to decorate a surface with desired functionality typically involves surface-initiated polymerization (SIP) of functional, but non-reactive monomers. This approach suffers major drawbacks associated with synthesizing sufficiently thick polymer brushes containing surface-attached polymer chains of high molecular weight at high grafting density (i.e. cost, synthetic effort and functional group intolerance during polymerization). The research herein seeks to circumvent these limitations by the decoration of surfaces with polymer chains bearing specific pendent functional groups amenable to post-polymerization modification (PPM). In particular, this dissertation leverages PPM via a specific class of click reactions – thiol-click – that 1) enables …
Seeing The Chemistry Around Me – Helping Students Identify The Relevance Of Chemistry To Everyday Life, Tracy Lynn Moore
Seeing The Chemistry Around Me – Helping Students Identify The Relevance Of Chemistry To Everyday Life, Tracy Lynn Moore
Dissertations
The study attempted to determine whether the use of a series of reading and response assignments decreased students’ perceptions of chemistry difficulty and enhanced students’ perceptions of the relevance of chemistry in their everyday lives. Informed consent volunteer students enrolled in General Chemistry II at a community college in the southeastern United States during the Spring 2012 semester participated in this study. Students were assigned to read a series of short articles that connect chemistry to a specific aspect of everyday life and then answer a series of questions for each article. Open-response research instruments (initial questionnaire and final questionnaire) …
Microstructure, Vacancies And Voids In Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon, Rajendra Timilsina
Microstructure, Vacancies And Voids In Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon, Rajendra Timilsina
Dissertations
This dissertation presents a theoretical and computational study of microstructure, vacancies and voids in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). The microstructure consists of all possible silicon-hydrogen bonding configurations such as SiH, SiH2, SiH3 and SiH4. However, it is highly dominated (approximately 75% or even more) by monohydride (SiH) configurations. Furthermore, the hydrogen atoms locate in both clustered and diluted phases; as a result, the distribution becomes highly inhomogeneous. Approximately 5% of hydrogen atoms reside in a form of isolated monohydrides at the lower (7 at.%) concentration whereas such configurations do not appear at the higher concentrations …