Siyuan Dong,Yingqi Jia,Xiaozhi Xu,Jianeng Luo,Jingbin Han,Xiaoli Sun
Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) generally suffers from low crystallization rate and long molding duration, which as a result limit its application as engineering plastics. To overcome these drawbacks, series of PET/layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanocomposites were prepared by a solution blending process. The effect of metal composition (MgAl and CaAl) and organo-modification (stearic acid intercalated) for LDH fillers on the crystallization behavior of the nanocomposites was investigated. It was revealed that, compared with PET/CaAl-LDH, the PET/MgAl-LDH nanocomposite exhibits a higher crystallization temperature and faster crystallization rate, which is associated with the superior nucleation ability of MgAl-LDH. The nucleation mechanism of PET induced by LDHs was explored by means of Avrami equation and theory of Hoffman-Lauritzen, pointing out that the incorporation of LDHs reduce the free energy of nucleation and the fold surface free energy of PET. In order to improve the compatibility between LDH and PET, stearic acid (SA) intercalated MgAl-LDH was prepared and filled into PET matrix. The resultant PET/MgAl-LDH-SA shows a further enhanced crystallization temperature and accelerated crystallization rate, in comparison with PET/MgAl-LDH nanocomposites. In addition, the thermal stability, gas barrier and mechanical properties of PET/LDH composites were improved upon incorporation of LDH fillers.
Maillard reaction products (MRPs) were prepared by reacting both Yak and Holstein casein with different ratios of glucose to casein from 0:1 to 2.5:1. The results showed that the content of intermediate products and browning intensity of the Yak casein-glucose system increased with increasing concentrations of glucose, but were lower than for the Holstein system at the same ratio. With glycosylation, the reducing power and the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity of both Yak and Holstein caseins were enhanced. With increased glucose content, the reducing power of Yak MRPs increased at the same concentration. The metal chelating activity of Holstein MRPs decreased or was eliminated in the ratio range of 0.5:1 to 2.0:1 g glucose g −1 casein, while that of Yak MRPs were reduced in general. Improvement of the inhibitory activity for Yak casein was lower than that of Holstein casein after glycosylation by glucose.
Fast curing hydrogels are highly valuable in the skin care industry. Multi-arm polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a commonly used crosslinking agent for the preparation of fast curing hydrogels. However, the hydrogel preparation using multi-arm PEG crosslinking agents usually requires the end group modifications of reactants, which makes the preparation process complicated and produces hydrogels with low curing rates. In the present study, a fast in situ curing hydrogel, 4-arm-PEG-succinimidyl carbonate/carboxymethyl chitosan (PEG-SC/CMCS), was prepared using 4-arm-PEG-SC as the crosslinking agent and carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), a derivative of natural polysaccharide with excellent comprehensive properties, as the framework without any end groups modified. The structure and properties of the prepared hydrogel were characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, rheology and swelling kinetics. The effects of reaction conditions on the structure and properties of hydrogel were investigated. The PEG-SC/CMCS hydrogel exhibited pH-sensitive swelling behaviors. Its application potential in skin care products is demonstrated with its excellent sustained-release performance of Vitamin C, a model drug for skin treatment, and high adsorption capacity of heavy metal ions that are easily deposited on skin surface. Our work has provided a new strategy for building multifunctional gel materials for skin care and offered a PEG-SC/CMCS hydrogel with great application potentials.