A Vanillin-Derived,DOPO-Contained Bisphenol as a Reactive Flame Retardant for High-Performance Epoxy Thermosets

Quest for bio-based halogen-free green flame retardant has attracted many concerns in recent years.Herein a reactive functional flame retardant containing phosphorus VDP is synthesized from vanillin,9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphophene-10-oxide(DOPO)and phenol via a facile way.VDP is characterized with^(1)H NMR,^(31)P NMR,FTIR and Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry,and used as a new reactive flame retardant for bisphenol epoxy thermosets.Thermogravimetry analysis shows that when the VDP loading is only 0.5P%(based on phosphorus content),the residue increases from 14.2%to 21.1%at 750℃ in N_(2)compare with neat DGEBA.Correspondingly,the limit oxygen index increased to 29.6%,and flame retardancy reaches UL-94 V0 grade.Micro combustion calorimetry(MCC)and cone calorimetry analyses demonstrate that VDP can significantly lower flammability of the epoxy thermoset.With only 0.5P%of VDP,the heat release rate,total heat release rate and smoke production are reduced markedly.At the same time,the mechanical properties of the modified epoxy thermosets are also improved.The impact strength increases by 34%and the flexural strength increased by 23%,with 1.5P%of VDP.In short,VDP not only improves the flame retardancy,but also improves the mechanical properties of the epoxy thermosets.

Borate-Modified,Flame-Retardant Paper Packaging Materials for Archive Conservation

Paper packaging materials like cardboards are widely used to protect archives which are a major kind of cultural relics.Unfortunately,paper is a combustible material,and thus exploring environment-friendly flame retardant for paper-based archive packaging material plays an important role.Herein,boric acid,borax and disodium octaborate are used to modify the craft paper-based packaging materials for archive conservation to improve fire safety.The modified craft paper exhibits much higher flame retardancy than the pristine one dose based on vertical burning tests,without much influence on mechanical properties such as tensile strength and elongation at break.Thermogravimetric analysis(TGA),scanning electron microscope(SEM),and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)reveal that porous glass structure is formed during the combustion,because thermal decomposition of boric acid,borax and disodium octaborate will produce porous glassy matter as B_(2)O_(3).The porous glass covers the paper surface as an insulating layer which retards the further pyrolysis and combustion,resulting in a denser carbon layer.Our study provides a robust way to reduce the fire hazard of the archive packaging material by applying environment-friendly boron-based fire retardants.

A New DOPO-Eugenol Adduct as an Effective Flame Retardant for Epoxy Thermosets with Improved Mechanical Properties

The development of efficient green flame retardants is an important way to realize more sustainable epoxy thermosets and downstream materials.In this work,a monoepoxide is synthesized through O-glycidylation of eugenol,and then reacted with DOPO(9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphophenanthrene-10-oxide)to obtain a new bio-based flame retardant,DOPO-GE.DOPO-GE is blended with a bisphenol A epoxy prepolymer exhibiting good compatibility and DDS(4,4′-diaminodiphenylsulfone)is used as the curing agent to afford epoxy thermosets.Although DOPO-GE leads to the reduced glass transition temperature of the thermosets,the storage modulus increases considerably.The DOPO-GE-modified thermosets exhibit the high thermal stability with the onset thermal decomposition temperature in nitrogen and air exceeding 300℃.When the phosphorus content in the thermoset is 1.0%,the residual yield of the thermosets at 750℃ in nitrogen increases from 13.9%to 30.6%,due to the increased charring ability.More interestingly,when the phosphorus content is only 0.5%,the limiting oxygen index is as high as 30.3%with UL94 V0 achieved.Cone calorimeter results reveals the significantly decreased heat release rate,total heat release,mass loss and total smoke production.Furthermore,DOPO-GE can notably improve the flexural strength,flexural modulus and fracture toughness,whereas the shear and impact strength are reduced to varied extents.In short,DOPO-GE can be obtained via a facile way,and shows the good flame-retardant effect on the epoxy thermosets with an application potential.

Measuring benefits of rural-to-urban water transfer:a case study from Puyang River basin,China

Agriculture-to-urban water transfer is currently an important measure to meet the increasing water demand resulting from rapid industrialization and urbanization in China.Measuring benefits of agriculture-to-urban water transfer is critical to assess water transfer proposals,and it can also provide reliable basis for redistributing the benefits of agriculture-to-urban water transfer.This paper has developed a comprehensive framework in which production function approach is applied to quantify the value of water use in agricultural and industrial sectors,and contingent valuation method is employed to investigate the value of water use in municipal consumption and ecological environment.A case study from Zhuji City in China verified the feasibility and validity of the method proposed in the paper.Results indicate that the agriculture-to-urban water transfer increases the water value created by improving allocation efficiency of water use in different sectors.The benefits of agriculture-to-urban water transfer mainly originate from the fact that the economic value in industrial water use is higher than in the other sectors’water use.Meanwhile,the urban residents have a stronger desire to improve the water eco-environment which leads to higher water value in urban area.

Ultra-sharp silicon multimode waveguide bends based on double free-form curves

Mode-division multiplexing(MDM)can greatly improve the capacity of information transmission.The multimode waveguide bend(MWB)with small size and high performance is of great significance for the on-chip MDM integrated system.In this paper,an MWB with high performance based on double free-form curves(DFFCs)is proposed and realized.The DFFC is a combination of a series of arcs optimized by the inverse design method.The fabrication of this MWB only needs one-step lithography and plasma etching and has a large fabrication tolerance.MWBs with effective radii of 6μm and 10μm are designed to support three modes and four modes,respectively.The proposed method gives the best overall performance considering both the effective bending radius and the transmission efficiency.The fabricated MWB with four mode channels has low excess losses and crosstalks below-21 dB in the wavelength range from 1520 to 1580 nm.It is expected that this design can play an important role in promoting the dense integration of multimode transmission systems.

Rett syndrome with atrial tachycardia in a girl

To the editor:A 26-month-old girl presented with atrial tachycardia as the main cardiac manifestation,which lasted for more than 1 year.The girl was born to healthy,non-consanguineous parents and had no family history of similar diseases.There was no asphyxia at birth and no abnormal feeding history.Her development was normal in the early stages.However,at the age of 17 months she did not respond to her name and hardly communicated with her parents.She was also unable to grasp things and repeatedly chewed on her hands.In the meantime,she frequently started grinding her teeth when awake.