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Polymer Chemistry

Pittsburg State University

2017

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Use Of Decahydrodecaborate As Flame Retardants In Polyurethanes, Austin W. Bailey May 2017

Use Of Decahydrodecaborate As Flame Retardants In Polyurethanes, Austin W. Bailey

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

There is a growing need for non-halogenated flame retardants due to the toxicity and environmental impacts that are exhibited by current ones. The polyurethane industry is one that has expressed a need for flame retardants in many of its industrial and commercial applications. For these reasons, two different decaborate compounds, tetramethyl and tetrabutyl ammonium decahydrodecaborate, were synthesized and incorporated into polyurethane films for testing. The compounds were characterized using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Proton-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy, Carbon-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (13C-NMR) spectroscopy, and Boron-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (11B-NMR) spectroscopy. The compounds were incorporated …

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Biowaste Derived Rigid Polyurethane Foams And Supercapacitors: A Renewable And Sustainable Alternative For Petrochemicals, Charith K. R. Akurana Gamaralalage May 2017

Biowaste Derived Rigid Polyurethane Foams And Supercapacitors: A Renewable And Sustainable Alternative For Petrochemicals, Charith K. R. Akurana Gamaralalage

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Bio-based polyol for rigid polyurethane (PU) foams and porous structured carbon as an electrode material for supercapacitors were synthesized from readily available biowaste precursor (orange peel) as an alternative to currently used petroleum-based starting materials. Synthesized bio-based polyols were characterized using FTIR, GPC, hydroxyl number, and viscosity measurements. These analyses indicated that intended bio-based polyol was obtained via thiol-ene chemistry with a high yield. Rigid PU foams prepared from bio-based polyol exhibited density around 35 kg/m3, maintained a regular cell structure with uniform cell distribution, closed cell content over 90%, and excellent compressive strength of ~230 kPa, suggesting …

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Sulfurization Of Nanostructured Cobalt Oxide For Energy Storage Applications, Samiyah Fahad Aloqayli May 2017

Sulfurization Of Nanostructured Cobalt Oxide For Energy Storage Applications, Samiyah Fahad Aloqayli

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Development of energy storage devices with high energy performance, power density, fast charge-discharge capability and long cyclability is needed to meet the increasing demand for energy, power and environmental protection in our daily life. Supercapacitors have great potential in future energy storage devices with magnificent properties. Recently, researchers have shown great progress for the improvement of supercapacitor performance by fabrication of nanostructured transition metal chalcogenides materials. One of the main objectives of this thesis is to synthesize nanostructured cobalt oxide and then converte them to cobalt sulfide using a facile hydrothermal method. The synthesized cobalt oxide and cobalt sulfide were …

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Synthesis And Characterization Of Molybdenum Sulfide And For Hydrogen Evolution Reaction And Supercapacitor Applications, Zhuo Wang May 2017

Synthesis And Characterization Of Molybdenum Sulfide And For Hydrogen Evolution Reaction And Supercapacitor Applications, Zhuo Wang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

To meet the constantly rising requirement of energy other than traditional fossil fuel and environment protection, it is a perfect time to development low cost, and efficient materials for clean energy production. Hydrogen generation by water splitting is one of the cleanest ways to produce cheaper energy. Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is one of the key steps in water splitting process. Ideally, the thermodynamic potential for HER should be at 0 V (vs. SHE). However, without an efficient catalyst, this reaction occurred at higher potential, called overpotential. A good HER catalyst is needed to lower the overpotential and hence to …

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Molecularly Targeted Nanomedicine: Role Of Hsp90 Inhibitor And Sophorolipids In The Treatment Of Lung Cancer, Shuguftha Naz Ms May 2017

Molecularly Targeted Nanomedicine: Role Of Hsp90 Inhibitor And Sophorolipids In The Treatment Of Lung Cancer, Shuguftha Naz Ms

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Lactonic sophorolipids (LSL) are a class of enzymatically modified glycolipids known to have HDAC inhibition activity and anticancer properties. Ganetespib (GT), an Hsp90 inhibitor, is known for its superior antitumor activity in several K-RAS mutant Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) cells. In this study, a new anti-oxidant nanoplatform is formulated using the combination of these two drugs, LSL and GT, in order to target both HDAC inhibition and Hsp90 signaling pathways in NSCLC. Nanoceria (NC) is an excellent redox platform will be specifically used to supplement the therapeutic potency of these drugs in the effective treatment of NSCLC. We hypothesized that …

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One-Pot Syntheses And Characterizations Of “Click-Able” Polyester Polymers For Potential Biomedical Applications, James F. Beach Ii May 2017

One-Pot Syntheses And Characterizations Of “Click-Able” Polyester Polymers For Potential Biomedical Applications, James F. Beach Ii

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

In this study, a synthetic polyester polymer was designed using polyethylene glycol, sorbitol, glutaric acid and 4-pentynoic acid as monomers. The synthesis was carried out using standard melt polymerization technique and catalyzed by Novozyme-435, an enzyme suitable for polyesterification of biocompatible compounds. The progress of the reaction was monitored with respect to time and vacuum exposure, with samples being subjected to standard characterization protocols. Polymers with high molecular weight and water solubility were chosen for further modification into folate-functionalized polymeric nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to cancer cells. This was achieved by employing a solvent diffusion method, wherein the polymer …

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Graphene Nanoribbons And Their Polymeric Nanocomposites: Controlled Synthesis, Characterization And Applications, Nada M. Aljehany May 2017

Graphene Nanoribbons And Their Polymeric Nanocomposites: Controlled Synthesis, Characterization And Applications, Nada M. Aljehany

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Carbon based materials are very promising as electrode materials energy generation and storage devices. They have been used for fuel cells, supercapacitors and solar cells. Among the carbon-based materials, graphene is very attractive due to its unique properties such as high electrical conductivity, good mechanical flexibility, large theoretical surface area (2630 m2/g), and high thermal and chemical stability. These unique properties make them very suitable for energy storage applications particularly for supercapacitors. The performance of the graphene as energy storage material could be further improved by growing them in nanoribbon form by unzipping carbon nanotubes. In this thesis, …

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Effects Of Processing Parameters On Properties Of Novel Silica-Filled Polysiloxane Materials, Kyle W. Schwenker May 2017

Effects Of Processing Parameters On Properties Of Novel Silica-Filled Polysiloxane Materials, Kyle W. Schwenker

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Polysiloxanes are a class of materials that possess high temperature stability and the ability to remain flexible at extremely low temperatures. Their elastomers generally exhibit low strength and have poor mechanical properties unless reinforced with fillers. Reinforcement can be accomplished by compounding reinforcing silica fillers with polysiloxanes via twin-screw extrusion compounding that vigorously mixes the fillers into a polymer matrix. In this thesis, a lab-scale twin-screw extruder was utilized to compound thermoplastic materials to determine the effects of processing on thermoplastics material properties, as well as to determine the extruder’s compounding effectiveness. Processing via lab-scale twin-screw extrusion did not negatively …

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Use Of Decahydrodecaborate As Flame Retardants In Coatings, Austin Bailey Apr 2017

Use Of Decahydrodecaborate As Flame Retardants In Coatings, Austin Bailey

Paper and Posters Presentations

As the need to protect the environment continues to increase, there is a growing demand for non-halogenated flame retardants. Two different decaborate compounds were combined with triphenylphosphine oxide into polyurethane and characterized. The thermal stability and the potential flame retardancy of the new materials were tested via thermogravimetric analysis and cone calorimetry. The cone test provided heat release rates and smoke release rates. Per the results of these tests the combination of the new decaborate, and triphenylphosphine oxide showed potential for flame retardancy at minimal amounts of flame retardant.

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High Performance Supercapacitor Device Based On Polymer Derived Carbon Nanofiber With Enhanced Capacity At Elevated Temperatures, Charith Ranaweera Apr 2017

High Performance Supercapacitor Device Based On Polymer Derived Carbon Nanofiber With Enhanced Capacity At Elevated Temperatures, Charith Ranaweera

Paper and Posters Presentations

Recently, supercapacitors are attracting considerable interest as a promising energy storage device. In this study, we report the high performing supercapacitor based on cobalt oxide embedded carbon nanofibers (CNF@CO) fabricated by electrospinning of cobalt acetate and polyacrylonitrile mixture in to carbon nanofibers (CNF) and subsequent pyrolyzed at 800 oC under nitrogen atmosphere. Morphology and electrochemical properties of the fabricated CNF@CO was studied in detailed. Embedding of cobalt oxide in to CNF showed a remarkable improvement in the charge storage capacitance, specific capacitance of 360 F/g and 1100 F/g were observed for CNF and CNF@CO, respectively. We studied the effect of …

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High-Quality Polyurethane Foams And Sheets From Sustainable Natural Resources, Sanket Bhoyate, Chungyang Zhang, Mihail Ionescu Apr 2017

High-Quality Polyurethane Foams And Sheets From Sustainable Natural Resources, Sanket Bhoyate, Chungyang Zhang, Mihail Ionescu

Paper and Posters Presentations

Bio-polymers from sustainable natural resources serve mankind keeping environmental factors under consideration. Resources such as soybean, castor and orange oil are among highly cultivable agro-resources. Polyols formulated from these oils shows clean-environmental pathway for synthesizing polyurethane foams and sheets. Facile single-step synthesis, with negligible waste as well as byproducts produces 100% qualitative yield for polyurethane foams. Present work displays use of synthesized polyols in developing polyurethane foams and casts. Viscometry, FTIR spectroscopy, GPC and other chemical analysis were done to ensure the quality of the raw materials. Cast Sheets and foams were produced by chemical polymerization with di-phenyl methane diisocyanate …

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Combination Therapy Of Prostate Cancer Utilizing Functionalized Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Carrying Tnf-A And Lactonic Sophorolipids, James Beach, Tuhina Banerjee, Jyothi Kallu, Ryan Higginbotham, Richard Gross Apr 2017

Combination Therapy Of Prostate Cancer Utilizing Functionalized Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Carrying Tnf-A And Lactonic Sophorolipids, James Beach, Tuhina Banerjee, Jyothi Kallu, Ryan Higginbotham, Richard Gross

Paper and Posters Presentations

Prostate cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer afflicting men in the United States. In recent years, advances in the field of nanotechnology have allowed for new and innovative ways to treat various types of cancer and various other diseases. Our research focuses on the treatment of the LNCaP line prostate cancer utilizing iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) loaded with soluble TNF-a and lactonic sophorolipids (LSLs). TNF-a is a cytokine responsible for apoptosis initiation, while LSLs are naturally-glycolipids shown to alleviate inflammation and improve immune response in certain diseases. We hypothesized that this combination may possess a synergistic …

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Moleculary Targeted Nanomedicine: Role Of Hsp90 Inhibitor And Sophorolipids, Shuguftha Naz Apr 2017

Moleculary Targeted Nanomedicine: Role Of Hsp90 Inhibitor And Sophorolipids, Shuguftha Naz

Paper and Posters Presentations

Oncogenic K-RAS, one of the major histologic subtypes of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 25% of the lung cancer related deaths. Hsp90, a ubiquitously expressed molecular chaperone is considered to be a promising target for therapeutic intervention. It is known to interact with several client proteins that are important in the pathogenesis of the cancer. Ganetespib, an Hsp90 inhibitor has been shown to have superior anti-tumor activity in several K-RAS mutant NSCLC cell lines. In addition, lactonic sophorolipids (LSL), a class of chemo-enzymatically modified glycolipids, are known to be promising immunomodulators and have shown to decrease the mortality rate …

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High Performance Carbon Nanofiber Supercapacitor Electrode With Tuned Porous Structure, Sanket Bhoyate Apr 2017

High Performance Carbon Nanofiber Supercapacitor Electrode With Tuned Porous Structure, Sanket Bhoyate

Paper and Posters Presentations

High performance capacitor devices based on electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) principle has wide advantage of higher range of cyclic stability, rate capability, temperature durability and chemically resistant. Carbon based materials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, activated carbon and carbon nanofibers are well known supercapacitor materials derived till date. Creating pores within the physical structure has found to improve the EDLC capabilities of the material. Exfoliation of graphene, activation of carbon and activation of nanofibers via various different techniques seem to be too complicated, non-consistent and needs wide range of control parameters. Facile immiscible polymer blend technique followed by thermal …

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