Polymers - Vol. 58, No. 3 (March, 2009)

Hot Topics

Vol. 58, No. 3 (March, 2009)

Preparation and Physical Properties of Highly-Purified Ring Polymers
Atsushi TAKANO
Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University

Ring polystyrenes were
synthesized by anionic
polymerization and isolated by SEC fractioination, furthermore purified by fractionation using liquid chromatography at the critical condition (LCCC). The purity of the ring polymers was checked using LCCC analyses.
It was confirmed that the
fractionated rings by SEC
fractionation had relatively high purity (<96%), and further-purified rings by LCCC had very high purity (<99.5%). Various kinds of physical properties of the rings in solution and bulk were carefully investigated. For example, from results of viscoelastic measurements for rings with very high purity, it was confirmed that data for ring polymers with very high purity (<99.5%) did not show apparent plateau region and had shorter relaxation time than the linear one.
Polymer Preprints, Japan 2008, 57, 2179

Development of a Recyclable High Strength Fiber
Yukihiro ABE1*, Masashi HARADA2, Yasuko MITOOKA1, Naoki WATANABE1, Fuyuhiko KUBOTA1 and Yasuo OHTA1
1TOYOBO Research Center, 2JAXA
As a candidate for an environmental conscious super fiber,
we have been developing a brand new recyclable polyindigo fiber. It is expected to show high
compressive strength, tensile strength, and tensile modulus, which are twice as high as those of p-aramid fibers on the
prediction of a molecular orbital method. Furthermore, it takes a leuco form to dissolve into water by reduction with Na2S2O4, and returns to a keto form by oxidation in the air. We succeeded in
synthesizing the polymer from three routes. However, the molecular weight achieved at this moment is not enough to process a fiber. Next research step is to obtain high degree of polymerization of the polymer.
PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 19.

Environmental Friendly Toner
Nobuyuki AOKI
TOMOEGAWA
Many people have big concern on safety and environmental issues.... toner for xerography is not exception too. Considering this situation, newly designed toner has been developed by
utilizing COC (cyclic olefin copolymer) resin.
Because of very simple olefinic nature of the COC resin which give toner the light weight, and good surface tension believed,,,,, unique toner can be achieved.
Lower toner consumption, high durability and relatively low VOC, by those characteristics, toner wonﾕt contaminate to the important parts of printer/copier and toner yield would be better. This would lead a big help for the design of the products to extend its life, also less consumption of material....thus it can be ﾒenvironmental friendly tonerﾓ.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 158.

Plastic Substrate for Flexible Displays
Toru HANADA
Electronics Material Research Laboratories, TEIJIN Limited
A novel plastic substrate was developed, which has high potential to produce thin, lightweight, robust and flexible
displays such as LCD, OLED, and EPD. A novel polycarbonate was used as a base of the
substrate. The retardation value is less than 1 nm at a wavelength of 550 nm (film thickness is
120 mm). Even at 180 淸, the elastic modulus is 2 GPa and thermal shrinkage is less than 0.01%. Furthermore, the surface roughness is less than 0.5 nm (measured by AFM). In addition, outstanding gas barrier performance was achieved by coating with unique organic-inorganic hybrid layers. As a transparent conductive layer of the substrate, indium zinc oxide was deposited by DC magnetron spattering
(30 ohm/sq. TT%=87 %).

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 136.

Islets of Langerhans Encapsulated with Living Cells for Improvement of Biocompatibility
Yuji TERAMURA and Hiroo IWATA*
Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, Kyoto University
Various bioartificial pancreas, microencapsulation of islets of Langerhans (islets) within a
semipermeable membrane has been studied as a safe and simple technique for improvement of graft survival. However, these materials comprising bioartificial pancreas are might induce
foreign body and inflammatory reactions after implantation. Here we propose a novel method for microencapsulation of islets with living cells using an amphiphilic poly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated phospholipid
derivative and the biotin/streptavidin reaction as shown in Figure. Enclosure of islets in cell layers is shown in Figures. Insulin secretion ability by glucose
stimulation was well maintained on living cells-based encapsulated islets. Our cell- based islet microencapsulation method is promising to improve biocompatibility after transplantation.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 11.

Polymer-Peptide Conjugate for Cell-Specific Gene Expression
Yoshiki KATAYAMA
Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering,
Kyushu University
We have developed cationic peptide grafted polymers for cell specific gene therapy and imaging. In this gene regulator, the cationic peptide was designed as specific substrate for target protein kinase or protease. The polymer conjugates form tight complex with DNA and suppress the gene expression. If target enzyme is abnormally activated in target disease cell, peptide modification with the target enzyme release the gene and allows to express. Particular protein kinase or
protease is known to be
extraordinary activated in various diseases. Therefore, this system offers a new concept of disease cell-specific gene therapy. It is also useful for in vivo imaging in diagnosis or drug discovery.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 13.

Current Status of Highly Efficient White OLEDs and Their Application to Solid State Lighting
Takuya KOMODA
Advanced Technologies Development Laboratory, Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.
OLED becomes one of the
promising technologies for the next generation solid state
lighing, which can provide
gentle, high efficient and quality white light from the thin planar lighting fixture. We realized white OLED with balanced performance of higher color rendering index (CRI) of 88, power efficiency of 29 lm/W, and half decay lifetime of 20,000 h at 1,000 cd/m2 by the adequate combination of RGB emitters and the optical/electrical optimization of the device structure. Additionally, very uniform and stable emission in a large area panel at high luminance (eg. 6 ｴ 8 cm2 at 3,000 cd/m2) was
realized in combination with the newly developed thin film, high heat radiative passivation
structure and optimized bus electrodes.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 144.

Novel Low Isotactic Polyolefin
Yutaka MINAMI
Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
Novel polypropylene, polybutylene and poly-a-olefins having Low isotacticity and high molecular weight were obtained using the specific C2-symmetric doubly bridged metallocene complexes. The polypropylene and
polybutylene are isotactic random, so that a large number of
microcrystal occupies uniformly the whole materials in space, which differentiate them from a usual olefin-copolymer. Polymer properties are adjustable by
controlling isotacticity because Tm and DH are proportional to
isotacticity. Though the low
isotactic polypropylene is homo polymer, it shows low Tm,
having excellent transparency, high elasticity, stickiless and good compatibility with PP.
The low isotactic polyolefins are expected to be applicable to hot melt adhesive, elastic non-woven, elastic fiber, elastic film, emulsion and modifier (for CPP film, OPP film and non-woven).

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 152.

Development of Organic Solar Cells based on Ionically and Electrically Conducting Polymers
Yoshinori NISHIKITANI
Central Technical Research Laboratory, Research & Development Division, Nippon Oil Co.
We developed the quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) using gel-type ionically conducting polymers (ICPs) based on poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP). The IPCs yielded a good ionic conductivity and mechanical strength by optimizing the film thickness and ingredients of ICPs, thus increased the conversion efficiency of the ICP-based DSC to almost the same value of a
liquid electrolyte-based DSC. The DSC also showed a good durability since leakage and/or volatility of the electrolyte solution were reduced.
We also proposed the donor/acceptor-type block copolymers for bulk heterojunction organic thin-film solar cells. Numerical simulation that we had performed showed that HOMO and LUMO energy levels and segment lengths of donor and acceptor blocks were key parameters to increase the
conversion efficiency of the cells, and indicated that higher
conversion efficiency was expected when each segment length was designed to be shorter than a respective exciton diffusion length.
PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 148.

Material Characterization of Polyolefins by Synchrotron and Neutron Scattering
Yoshinobu NOZUE and Takashi SAKURAI*
Petrochemicals Research Laboratory, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.
As an industrial application of advanced quantum beam source to polyolefin materials, we have successfully applied microbeam wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS, SAXS) and polarized optical microscope (POM) simultaneous measurements for in-situ observation of deformation behavior of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) spherulites. Combined SAXS and WAXS measurements are very useful tools to obtain the hierarchical structural information from the packing structure of crystals to lamellar stacking. Recent third-generation synchrotron radiation source makes it possible to
produce a microbeam of several microns diameter with low
divergence and high intensity. This method enables us to observe the disordering process of parent and daughter lamellae oriented inside ﾒaﾓ spherulite, and subsequent rearrangement process of disordered lamellae blocks during necking.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 17.

Cellulose Acetate: Recent Developments
Shu SHIMAMOTO
Daicel Chemical Industries, Ltd.
The commercial cellulose acetate is manufactured by the acetylation of cellulose followed by the partial deacetylation. It is commercially used recently, on top of traditional applications, in the fields of liquid crystalline
display (polarizer protection film and retardation plate) and water treatment (ultrafiltration membrane for drinking and waste water treatments). Efforts to elucidate further the polymer contributed to the recent commercial
developments. The development of evaluation method for
dispersion in degree of substitution (DS) of cellulose acetate (Asai et al., Macromolecular Symposia, Vol. 242) is enumerated as one of the most successful examples. It was revealed by the method that the commercial products usually possess DS dispersions, which are close to, but systematically larger than the theoretical predictions (see Figure).

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 3.

Formation of Moth-Eye Anti Reflection Films Using Roll Template
Yoshihiro UOZU
Tokyo Technology & Imformation Center Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd.
Moth eye surfaces can prevent reflection by changing a refractive index continuously between air and the matrices, which
theoretically was already known. The technology to form such structures at small areas has been developed, but it is too
difficult to form moth eye surfaces at large areas.
The Anodic porous alumina
provided by self-organization can be formed even on the curved surface. We propose a continuous manufacturing process of a moth eye surface on a polymer film with a roll mold and have been researching the process.
We produced the moth-eye type AR films with the roll type molds, continuously. A high-productive and low-cost production process of moth-eye surfaces is thought to be realized by developing this research.

PMF Preprints, Japan 2008, 17, 134.