Keeping in mind the significance of hydrogels as an external stimuli sensitive super absorbing material, some transparent covalent hydrogels of chitosan were prepared by crosslinking with varying amounts of formaldehyde solution used as crosslinking agent. The characteristics of hydrogels were investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FT–IR) spectroscopy and swelling experiments. The effect of crosslinking agent on water absorbency has been investigated. The hydrogels exhibited a relatively higher swelling ratio in the range of 2066–3306% and equilibrium water content (EWC) in the range of 95.38–97.06% at pH 7 and 35°C temperature. The influence of external stimuli such as pH, temperature, and ionic strength of the swelling media on equilibrium swelling properties has been observed. Hydrogels showed a typical pH and temperature responsive behaviour such as low pH and high temperature has maximum swelling while high pH and low temperature show minimum swelling. An increase in the ionic strength of swelling media caused a continuous decrease in the swelling of hydrogels at both acidic and basic pH.

Triple hybrid materials based on polyaniline-polyethylene glycol and cadmium sulphide have been prepared by the duffusion–limited biomimetic route and characterized by a number of spectroscopic, XRD, SEM, thermal and electrical measurements. These hybrid materials have been prepared by controlled precipitation of cadmium sulphide by passing H₂S gas and mixing the resultant colloid with the acidic solution of aniline. in situ polymerization of adsorbed anilinium ions on anionic surface of CdS resulted in hybrids. Water–soluble polyethylene glycol led to diffusion–limited growth of polyaniline and CdS resulting in a nanosized hybrid material as indicated by UV-visible spectra, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). AC impedance spectroscopic studies on binary and ternary nanocomposites of polyaniline with polyethylene glycol and cadmium sulphide separately and triple hybrid system have been reported. Equivalent circuits were determined and discussed in the light of contributions made from different sources such as grain, grain boundary and electrode.

We have presented an analysis of the volume expansion data for periclase (MgO), lime (CaO), corundum (Al₂O₃) and spinel (MgAl₂O₄) determined experimentally by Fiquet et al (1999) from 300K up to 3000K. The thermal equation of state due to Suzuki et al (1979) and Shanker et al (1997) are used to study the relationships between thermal pressure and volume expansion for the entire range of temperatures starting from room temperature up to the melting temperatures of the solids under study. Comparison of the results obtained in the present study with the corresponding experimental data reveal that the thermal pressure changes with temperature almost linearly up to quite high temperatures. At extremely high temperatures close to the melting temperatures thermal pressure deviates significantly from linearity. This prediction is consistent with other recent investigations. A quantitative analysis based on the theory of anharmonic effects has been presented to account for the nonlinear variation of the thermal pressure at high temperatures.

We report preparation of hydrophobic platinum-doped carbon aerogel (PtCA) catalyst and its characterization for catalytic exchange reactions between hydrogen isotopes. The PtCA powder was synthesized by sol–gel polymerization method, mixed with colloidal PTFE solution, and coated on Dixon rings to obtain hydrophobic catalyst. The Pt cluster size in PtCA powder was observed to vary from 3 to 5 nm for a change in resorcinol to alkali molar ratio in synthesis solution from 20 to 200. Transmission electron microscopy of powder showed that the Pt clusters were uniformally dispersed and Pt⁰ metallic content estimated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was found to be of ∼ 70%. The catalytic activity was found to depend on Pt cluster size and was higher for smaller cluster size. For the smallest achieved Pt cluster size of 3 nm, catalytic activity of ∼ 0.8 m³ (STP) s^-1 m^-3 was obtained for hydrogen isotope exchange in atmospheric pressure conditions.