Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The movement toward a recycling-based society through the essential development of recyclable materials alongside technologies for controlling recycling, for example, upgrade recycling of commodity plastics, selective transformation of engineering plastics, selective depolymerization of various polymers in supercritical fluids, crosslinking-decrosslinking control using reversible reactions and developments in biomass-based recyclable polymers is reviewed.
Methyl methacrylate (MMA) was copolymerized with 9-anthrylmethyl methacrylate (AMA) or 2-(9-carbazolyl)ethyl methacrylate (CMA) under controlled atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) conditions. It yielded well-defined luminescent copolymers, which emitted light with various wavelengths and intensities depending on their compositions.
The Diels–Alder (DA) reaction of furfuryl ester-terminated butylene succinate oligomer (FBSO) with 1,1′-(methylenedi-4,1-phenylene)bismaleimide (BMI) at 60 °C afforded a polyesterimide ((P(FBSO-BMI)). The gel permeation chromatography (GPC) analysis of the reaction mixture of P(FBSO-BMI) at 120 °C revealed that FBSO and BMI are quantitatively recovered by the retro DA reaction. When maleimide/phenyl-substituted oligomeric silsesquioxane (MPOSS) was used instead of BMI, a partially crosslinked thermo-reversible hybrid composite (P(FBSO-MPOSS)) was obtained. The hybrid film prepared by solvent casting method of FBSO and MPOSS had much higher flexural strength than FBSO did.
Rodlike capsules consisting of a calcium carbonate core and a thin poly(methyl methacrylate) shell were synthesized. For the polymer shells thicker than 20 nm, Tg is not altered from the bulk value, whereas a shell of 8 nm thick exhibits a lowered Tg from the bulk, but the length scale of dynamic heterogeneity ξ(Tg) exhibits no distinct dependence on d. Correlation between ξ(Tg) and Tg was revealed, which is interpreted in terms of the concept of a cooperatively rearranging region.
A new beamline called the frontier soft-material beamline at BL03XU for soft materials was recently installed at SPring-8, using an in-vacuum undulator. The photon flux can reach 1013 photons sec−1 and the energy resolution is about 10−4 at an energy of 12.4 keV. The present paper introduces details on the instrumental and some of the first scattering data measured at BL03XU, revealing its cutting-edge design and high performance.
Electrospun composite nanofibers containing nanoparticles were fabricated through a one-step, single-nozzle electrospinning technique. The nanoparticles were linearly packed as a string along the axes of the fibers, forming core–shell structure. Loading different drugs in core and shell provided distinct release behaviors at the same time.
The films of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate)s P(3HB-co-3HH)s with low 3HH unit content show the brittle nature after aging. By elongating, the cast film of neat P(3HB-co-3HH) with 7 mol% 3HH unit became white with countless lines, while the blend with 5 wt% poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) elongated without remarkable whitening. This visual change indicates that the transition of deformation mechanism was induced by blending with a small amount of PCL. As a result, the ductility was greatly improved.
Streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads and poly(ethylene glycol) covalently immobilized streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads were prepared to investigate the heat resistance of streptavidin surrounded by a densely packed poly(ethylene glycol) tethered-chain layer on the magnetic bead surface. The covalent immobilization of poly(ethylene glycol) tethered-chains on the streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads surface was carried out using α-methoxy-poly(ethylene glycol)-pentaethylenehexamine (N6-PEG) after streptavidin immobilization. Figure shows changes in the capture efficiency of biotinylated single-stranded DNA by poly(ethylene glycol)/streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads (red plots) and streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads (blue plots) as a function of the number of heat-treatment cycles (75 °C for 5 min). Surprizingly, the heat resistance of the poly(ethylene glycol) tethered-chain covalently immobilized on the streptavidin-immobilized magnetic beads surface was found to improve.
