Seed germination and seedling morphology of the seagrass, Halophila engelmannii (Hydrocharitaceae)

Seeds of Halophila engelmannii Aschers., that were collected in Redfish Bay, Texas, at weekly intervals from mid-May to mid-June 1986, began to germinate 3–4 weeks after collection. Most of the collections subsequently showed an increase in the rate of germination under increased light intensity and all had a stoppage of germination after transfer to darkness, indicating a light requirement to break endogenous seed dormancy. During the 5 weeks after seeds germinated, seedlings in soil culture produced a rosette of six leaves before the appearance of a rhizome bud in the axil of the third leaf. The first node of the rhizome produced a root and an upright shoot with a pseudowhorl of three to five leaves.

Formation and modeling of disinfection by-products in drinking water of six cities in China

Funding and support for this project was provided by NSFC (Grant No. 40771015), and Key International Science and Technology Cooperation Projects (Grant No. 22007DFC20180). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of Key Projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program in the Eleventh Five-year Plan Period (Grant No. 2006BAD01B06-02). The authors thank the CDCs of Daqing, Beijing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Changsha and Shenzhen cities for field and laboratory technical support.

Crystallization and morphology of poly(ethylene oxide-b-lactide) crystalline-crystalline diblock copolymers

The crystallization behaviors and morphology of asymmetric crystalline-crystalline diblock copolymers poly(ethylene oxide-lactide) (PEO-b-PLLA) were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), and microscopic techniques (polarized optical microscopy (POM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)). Both blocks of PEO5-b-PLLA(16) can be crystallized, which was confirmed by WAXD, while PEO block in PEO5-b-PLLA(30) is difficult to crystallize because of the confinement induced by the high glass transition temperature and crystallization of PLLA block with the microphase separation of the block copolymer.

Effect of the nature of annealing solvent on the morphology of diblock copolymer blend thin films

The morphologies and structures for the thin film of blend systems consisting of two asymmetric polystyrene-block-polybutadiene (SB) diblock copolymers induced by annealing in the vapor of different solvents, namely, cyclohexane, benzene, and heptane, which have different selectivity or preferential affinity for a certain block, were investigated by tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results revealed that even a slight preferential affinity of good solvent for one block would strongly alter the morphology of the blend thin film.

Novel morphology of polyethylene crystals created upon melt crystallization of spin-coated film

We demonstrate a strikingly novel morphology of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) crystal obtained upon melt crystallization of spin-coated thin film. This crystal gives windmill-like morphology which contains a number of petals. A detailed inspection on this morphology reveals that each petal is actually composed of terrace-stacked PE lamellae, in which the polymer chains within crystallographic a-c planes adopt similar to 45 degrees tilting around b-axis. The surrounding domains associated with a petal of the windmill composed of twisted lamellar overgrowths with an identical orientation of their long axis, which is the crystallographic b-axis shared by the petal and its corresponding twisted lamellar overgrowths.

Solvent-induced Morphology of the Binary Mixture of Diblock Copolymer in Thin Film: The Block Length and Composition Dependence of Morphology

A series of binary SB blend samples with various overall volume fraction of PS (Phi(PS)) and different discrete distribution of the block length (denoted as d(PS) or d(PB)) were prepared by mixing various asymmetric poly(styrene)-block-poly(butadiene) (SB) block copolymers with a symmetric SB block copolymer. The influences of the external solvent field, composition, and the block length distribution on the morphologies of the blends in the thin films were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The experimental results revealed that after solvent annealing, the interface of the blend thin films depended mainly on the cooperative effects of the annealing solvent and the inherently interfacial curvature of the blends. Upon exposure to the saturated vapor of cyclohexane, which has preferential affinity for the PB block, a "threshold" of Phi(PS) (approximate 0.635-0.707) was found. Below such threshold, the influence of the annealing solvent played an important role on the interfacial curvature of the blend thin film.

Crystalline morphology of poly(L-lactic acid) thin films

Crystalline morphologies of spin-coated poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) thin films under different conditions are investigated mainly with atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique. When PLLA concentration in chloroform is varied from 0.01 to 1% gradually, disordered structure, rod-shape and larger spheres aggregates are observed in thin films subsequently. Under different annealing temperature, such as at 78, 102, 122 degrees C, respectively, we can find most rod-like crystalline aggregates. Interestingly, we observed that nucleation sites locate at the edge of the holes at the original crystalline stage. Then, these holes developed to form chrysanthemum-like and rods subsequently with annealing time meanwhile the size and the shape of crystalline aggregate are changed. In addition. effect of substrate and solvent on morphology is also discussed. On the other hand, the possible mechanism of crystalline morphology evolution is proposed.

Evolution of phase morphology of high impact polypropylene particles upon thermal treatment

Solvent fractionation and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results show that high impact polypropylene (hiPP) produced by a multistage polymerization process consists of PP homopolymer, amorphous ethylene-propylene random copolymer (EPR), and semicrystalline ethylene-propylene copolymer. For the original hiPP particles obtained right after polymerization, direct transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation reveals a fairly homogeneous morphology of the ethylene-propylene copolymer (EP) phase regions inside, while the polyethylene-rich interfacial layer observed between the EP region and the iPP matrix supports that EP copolymers form on the subglobule surface of the original iPP particles. Compared with that in original hiPP particles, the dispersed EP domains in pellets have much smaller average size and relatively uniform size distribution, indicating homogenization of the EP domains in the hiPP by melt-compounding. Upon heat-treatment, phase reorganization occurs in hiPP, and the dispersed EP domains can form a multiple-layered core-shell structure, comprising a polyethylene-rich core, an EPR intermediate layer and an outer shell formed by EP block copolymer, which accounts to some extent for the good toughness-rigidity balance of the material.

Thermal stability, crystallization, structure and morphology of syndiotactic 1,2-polybutadiene/organoclay nanocomposite

Syndiotactic 1,2-polybutadiene/organoclay nanocomposites were prepared and characterized by thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), polarized optical microscopy (POM), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. The XRD shows that exfoliated nanocomposites are formed dominantly at lower clay concentrations (less than 2%), at higher clay contents intercalated nanocomposites dominate. At the same time, the XRD indicates that the crystal structures of sPB formed in the sPB/organoclay nanocomposites do not vary, only the relative intensity of the peaks corresponding to (0 1 0) and (2 0 0)/(1 1 0) crystal planes, respectively, varies. The DSC and POM indicate that organoclay layers can improve cooling crystallization temperature, crystallization rate and reducing the spherulite sizes of sPB. TGA shows that under argon flow the nanocomposites exhibit slight decrease of thermal stability, while under oxygen flow the resistance of oxidation and thermal stability of sPB/organoclay nanocomposites were significantly improved relative to pristine sPB. The primary and secondary crystallization for pristine sPB and sPB/organoclay (2%) nanocomposites were analyzed and compared based on different approaches.

Study of controllable aggregation morphology of ABA amphiphilic triblock copolymer in dilute solution by changing the solvent property

We have studied, both experimentally and theoretically, the aggregation morphology of the ABA amphiphilic triblock copolymer in dilute solution by changing the solvent property. Experimental results showed that the micellar morphology changed from spheres to rods and then to vesicles by changing the common solvent from N-N-dimethylformamide (DMF) to dioxane and then to tetrahydrofuran (THF). These controllable aggregates were also obtained by Monte Carlo simulation. The simulative results showed that the solvent property is a key factor that determines the copolymer aggregation morphology. The morphology changed from spheres to rods and then to vesicles by increasing the solvent solubility, corresponding to the change of stretched of the copolymer chains in the micellar cores. This result is in good agreement with the experimental one. Moreover, the simulative results revealed that the end-to-end distant of the ABA triblock copolymer in the vesicle was larger than that in the spheres and rods, indicating that the copolymer chains were more stretched in vesicles than in the spheres and rods. Furthermore, we gave the distribution of the fraction of the chain number with the end-to-end distance. The results indicated that the amount of folded chains is almost the same as that of stretched chains in the vesicle. Although most chains were folded, stretched chains could be found in the rod and sphere micelles.

Morphology of electrodeposited poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(4-styrene sulfonate) films

Poly(4-styrene sulfonate)-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT/PSS) films with ring-, arrow-, and bubble-like microstructures have been electrochemically generated simply by a one-step cyclic voltammetry in an aqueous media. Influences of applied potentials and surfactant/dopant-PSS on morphology of the resulting film were investigated, and a gas bubble template mechanism has been proposed. The result confirmed a well-doping of PSS in the PEDOT film. Electrochemical property and conductivity of the micro-structured PEDOT/PSS film were investigated further. Similar preparation with potential applications in fabrication of microdevices and micro-sensors can be extended to other micro-structured conducting polymers.