1,721,038 research outputs found
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Fully bio-based furan/maleic anhydride epoxy resin with enhanced adhesive properties
Epoxy resins are widely used in a variety of application fields, thanks to their good mechanical strength, chemical resistance and adhesion to several substrates. Nowadays, the quite majority of epoxy resins are based on derivatives of bisphenol A (BPA), which poses serious health concerns. This issue is pushing the research towards suitable bio-based alternatives to this product, being furan-based epoxies very promising in this respect. In a previous work, 2,5-bis[(oxiran-2-ylmethoxy)methyl]furan (BOMF) was cured with methyl nadic anhydride (MNA), and successfully used as tinplate coating. Herein, in a view of increasing the sustainability of these epoxy resins, we have replaced MNA with maleic anhydride (MA), which can be derived from vegetable feedstocks, thus obtaining a fully bio-based epoxy resin. This latter has then been used as adhesive for carbon fiber-reinforced thermosetting plastics (CFRP). The curing process of the resin was monitored by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and chemo-rheological analysis. The results highlighted the significantly higher reactivity of BOMF towards MA compared to the diglycidyl ether of BPA (DGEBA). The crosslinked samples were characterized in their thermal, mechanical and adhesive properties. In comparison to DGEBA/MA and BOMF/MNA, BOMF/MA showed higher ultimate strain and slightly lower glass transition temperature, tensile modulus and ultimate strength. Interestingly, BOMF/MA displayed outstanding adhesive strength on CFRP joints, outperforming the DGEBA-based counterpart by three times. Indeed, by properly selecting the anhydride curing agent, a highly ductile fully bio-based material was developed for high performance adhesive applications. The overall results demonstrate that the properties of BOMF-based epoxy resins can be tailored to meet technical and safety requirements of downstream applications, representing a sustainable alternative to traditional systems containing DGEBA
Synthesis and Characterization of Aromatic Poly(benzobisthiazole)s and Poly[oxy(bisbenzothiazole)]s
Synthesis and Characterization of Aromatic Poly(benzobisthiazole)s and Poly[oxy(bisbenzothiazole)]s
Thermal oxidative stability and effect of water on gas transport and mechanical properties in PA6-EVOH films
The thermal oxidative stability and the effect of water on gas transport and mechanical properties of blends of polyamide 6 (PA6) with ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol (EVOH) and EVOH modified with carboxyl groups (EVOH-COOH) have been investigated. The presence of EVOH reduces water vapor and oxygen gas permeability of polyamide, as well as small amounts of EVOH-COOH further improve barrier properties, especially to oxygen. This has been explained in terms of improved interactions of the blend constituents in the amorphous phase, due to ionic linkages between the polyamide amino groups and the carboxyls of modified EVOH. The permeation to gases was found to increase with the amount of sorbed water. The morphology of the samples was found to have an effect on barrier properties, as the presence of EVOH causes the PA6 α crystalline form to increase, lowering the permeability to oxygen and water vapor. Mechanical properties are strongly affected by water sorption, as tensile modulus and strength decrease with increasing water content. Chemiluminescence (CL), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and tensile test were employed in order to assess the correlation between chemical composition and the thermal oxidative stability of the films aged at 110 °C in air. CL experiments suggest that the presence of EVOH and EVOH-COOH efficiently inhibits the formation of peroxidized species during the processing, and increases the thermal oxidative stability of the films. Infrared spectroscopy showed a build-up of carbonyl absorption in the range 1700–1780 cm−1, due to the formation of oxidation products, which is greater in the case of the pure polymer. Tensile tests on films revealed a reduction in ductility as a result of ageing for neat PA6, whereas in comparison the blends exhibit a far better long-term stability
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