Eastman Chemical Company is an American company primarily involved in the chemical industry. Once a subsidiary of Kodak, today it is an independent global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of advanced materials, chemicals and fibers for everyday purposes. Founded in 1920 and based in Kingsport, Tennessee, the company now has more than 50 manufacturing sites worldwide and employs approximately 14,500 people.Eastman was spun off from parent Eastman Kodak in 1994 and had 2019 sales revenue of approximately $9.3 billion.
EN 16613 Determination of interlayer viscoelastic properties was first published in 2019 as a complementary standard to EN 16612 Determination of the lateral load resistance of glass panes by calculation. Both standards were prepared by CEN TC129/WG8 Mechanical Strength. At the same time, work on the future Eurocode EN 19100 Design of Glass Structures was progressing in TC250/SC11/WG1. Like EN 16612, this standard series requires reliable interlayer modulus properties for structural design of laminated glass. This working group expressed concerns over the basic measurement methodology and data processing in the determination of modulus values of interlayers to EN 16613. Therefore, it was decided to revise EN 16613 relatively shortly after its publication. The revision was executed under the umbrella of TC129/WG3 Laminated Glass, where more of the required expertise was available. This resulted in publication of a revised EN 16613 in 2025. This revised standard is intended to serve as a basis for interlayer modulus properties in the EN 19100 series. This paper describes the background of the key improvements in EN 16613 between 2019 and 2025, as well as the impact on reliable glass design.
Abstract Plasticizers are small molecule additives compounded with polymers to tune their physical properties and facilitate processing, but plasticizers often leach from plastics, where they potentially have negative environmental and ecological consequences. Synthetic design can obviate the need for plasticizers by identifying a polymer with the required properties for an application without the need for external additives. In particular, designing isosteric analogues to commercial polymers that preserve key functionality while expanding the range of accessible thermal and mechanical properties would provide benefits beyond conventional copolymerization or side-chain modification strategies. Here, we demonstrate that a simple and efficient postpolymerization modification procedure provides access to poly(vinyl ether-co-vinyl alcohol) copolymers which are isosteric analogues of poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB). These copolymers exhibit thermal and rheological properties that are complementary to plasticized PVB and existing PVB-like polymers. The ability to tune both density of hydroxyl groups and vinyl ether side chain provided a library of copolymers with glass transition temperatures ranging from −54 to 18 °C. Rheological characterization confirmed that these materials behaved as entangled polymer melts at room temperature, with moduli and relaxation dynamics that depended on both hydroxyl content and side chain identity. Overall, this study demonstrates the value of creating isosteric analogues to commercial polymers that diversify their properties, with the potential for reducing the use of leachable small molecule additives.
Abstract In order to support scientific reviewing in the area of material property research and make the reviewing process easier and more efficient, checklists covering typical problems, lists of available resources, and computer-based and online tools to help compose reviewers’ reports have been created. Our intention is to ensure that scientific communications show necessary and sufficient primary and supporting information about substances studied, conditions, properties, and techniques of interest with understandable terminology, in detail assuring reproducibility of the obtained results. The principles and ideas of this project can be extended to other scientific areas.
In this study, a variety of Ni-substituted hexaaluminate catalysts were synthesized and evaluated for methane decomposition (CDM) using concentrated methane (PCH4 = 0.9 at 1 atm). Pre-treatment of the catalyst in a reducing environment (900 degrees C) led to the exsolution of Ni nanoparticles ranging between 40.79 +/- 6.48 and 77.52 +/- 9.23 nm and high CMD activity, primarily through the formation of tip-grown carbon nanotubes. Lowering the pre-treatment temperature to 700 degrees C results in smaller Ni particles exsolved from the parent hexaaluminate structure, which causes changes in the apparent growth mode of carbon nanotubes from a tip to a base-growth mechanism. Despite their low surface area, it is demonstrated that (Ca,Sr,Ba,La)-NixAl12-xO19 hexaaluminates pretreated at the standard temperature are surprisingly active for low-temperature CDM at T = 600 degrees C and GHSV = 5 Lg-1h-1 with the initial turnover frequency (TOFinitial) ranging between 2.90 and 4.96 s-1, higher than most reported TOFs for Ni-based catalysts. Carbon yields were on the order of CaNi1Al11O19 (17.36 gCgNi-1) > BaNi1Al11O19 (15.19 gCgNi-1) > SrNi1Al11O19 (6.65 gCgNi-1) > LaNi1Al11O19 (5.44 gCgNi-1) with the predominant growth mode of carbon being tip growth. Density functional theory calculations reveal that Ni substitution (ENi-sub) and oxygen vacancy formation (EO-vac) are favored in the spinel regions of the hexaaluminate structure as opposed to the mirror plane.
Understanding the chemical characteristics and residual impurities of a dissolving pulp feedstock is necessary to enhance both the quality and processability of yielded cellulose acetates. Fiber fractionation was performed with three different cotton linter feedstocks. Biomass compositional analysis and fiber quality analysis were used to determine the carbohydrate content of the fractionated fibers and the quantity of fines. To evaluate the impact of fines on the acetylation of cotton linters, artificial fines were prepared from fractionated long fibers and added back to long fibers in varying fines content blends. The cotton linter pulps and artificial fines blends were used to generate acetates which were characterized via degree of substitution measurement by FTIR, the ensuing weight fraction of acetone insoluble substance, and the filtration rate of the acetate. A test to measure the amount of sulfuric acid insoluble substances (SIS) was developed to explain the formation of insoluble gel particles in acetate media; an R2 of 0.97 was found between fines and resulting SIS. Then, SIS contents were correlated with the acetone insoluble substances in the acetates (R2 = 0.98). Fines contents were found to be highly influential on the acetate’s degree of substitution, insoluble substance content, and filtration rate (R2 = 0.99). Thorough activation and excess acetic anhydride reagent were found to limit the effects of fines on degree of substitution.
