Specialty practice materials useful

Our world is fuU of a variety of substances and materials that are used in human practice for very different purposes. Note that terms material and substance are not identical. A substance (chemical compound) is an ensem ble of a great number of atoms, molecules, ions, and/or radicals that define properties of the substance as an object for investigations, whereas materi als are the phase separated forms of substances (chemical individuals) or their ensembles (for example, specialty mixtures and composites) that feature a set of properties necessary for practical apphcations of the material. To create the material that possesses the required properties for particular practical applications, a specialty substance must be prepared and stabilized. Of importance is that the required substance modifications are often in a metastable state that differs from the thermodynamically equilibrium state and is, nevertheless, appropriate for the material storage and operation. 

Textile definitions most generally accepted for reference in the United States are those standardized by the American Society for Testing Materials and published in ASTM Standards on Textile Materials (W, 25). The Federal Trade Commission has also established definitions for use in enforcing its Trade Practice Rulings 20). These may differ from the ASTM definitions—for example, the ASTM restricts its definition of wool to the fiber from the fleece of the sheep, whereas the Federal Trade Commission defines it as the fiber from the fleece of the sheep or lamb or hair of the Angora or Cashmere goat (and may include the so-called specialty fibers from the hair of the camel, alpaca, llama, and vicuna). ... 

To a significant extent these new options of biotechnology have already been exploited in the health sector (new types of drugs and diagnostic tools), whereas practical applications are emerging at lower speed in other sectors, such as nutrition, environment, raw material supply, or specialty chemicals. New biotechnological production systems based on mammalian cell cultures are in use, e.g., for the manufacture of recombinant therapeutic proteins and antibodies. 

It can be anticipated from the above breakdown of information that the Handbook of Polymers contains information on all essential data used in practical applications, research, and legislation, providing such data are available for a particular material. In total, over 230 different types of data were searched for each individual polymer. The last number does not include special fields that might be added to characterize the performance of specialty polymers in their applications. 

Drs. Guy Humphrey and Ross Miller and Mr. David Lieberman sought to design and demonstrate a practical synthesis of the naphthosultam side chain. The medicinal chemistry route to this intermediate was based on l-(2-hydroxyethyl)naphthalene, a compound only available from specialty supply houses in limited quantities. Clearly this would not suffice, and an alternate starting material was needed. Dr. Miller recognized 1-methylnaphthalene as the most likely candidate for this need. It is available in bulk for a few dollars/kg, and should be amenable to a similar sequence of electrophilic reactions as used by the medicinal chemists to build up the sultam ring. 

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