Single crystals of 3-[4-(dibutylamino)phenyl]-4-cyano-5-dicyanomethylene-2-oxo-3-pyrroline 1a and its derivatives with 1-butyl (1b), 1-hexyl (1c) and 1-(2-[2-(acryloyloxy)ethoxy])ethyl (1e) groups were prepared and their X-ray crystallographic analyses were performed. These dyes have a common π-conjugation system terminated by donor and acceptor groups, and they can be applied to use as electrooptic chromophores. Their absorption of the crystals were discussed in relation to the chromophore alignment in the crystals. Antiparallel interaction between the π-conjugated systems, whether face-to-face or side-by-side, caused absorption shifts to shorter wavelengths. Absorption at the longest wavelength was observed for 1e, whose π-conjugated systems were separated by the substituents resulting in almost no interaction among the adjacent π-conjugated systems.

Metal materials are sometimes coated for the purpose of improving their resistance to corrosion and their designability. Maintenance of these targeted coating effects into the long term requires proper coating pretreatment. At present, the main type of coating pretreatment is chemical conversion. Chemical conversion treatment has excellent features in respect of post-coating corrosion resistance and productivity, but requires treatment of the waste liquid, and therefore has issues in the environmental aspect. In response, this research focused on atmospheric pressure plasma processing, which does not entail any waste liquid treatment, and examined its applicability for coating pretreatment. It found that atmospheric pressure plasma processing using nitrogen could improve wettability and adhesiveness. As the underlying factors, it identified the removal of organic substances on the metal material surface and the ability to curtail an oxidation reaction on the surface. The results also suggested there was a strong possibility that the post-coating corrosion resistance of the metal materials upon improvement of their wettability and adhesiveness by atmospheric pressure plasma processing would be greatly influenced by the form of occurrence of corrosion products in the metal materials.

We frequently use additives such as pigment dispersants or thickeners for the purpose of improving paint’s rheological properties. By performing pulse NMR and high-resolution NMR analyses for the polymer dynamics of pigment dispersants, the adsorption behavior of each monomer residue was clarified. Moreover, NMR results for the hydrophobic residues showed the remarkable decrease in molecular mobility in water, revealing the strong interaction between the alkyl groups of the rheological additive. This molecular-level information is important to control paint’s rheological properties therefore we found that the NMR measurements are the powerful method to characterize the dynamics of paint additives.

Fiber materials have been used not only for clothing applications but also in many other industrial fields such as “aviation and space”, “mechanical industry”, “electronics and communication” and “medicine”. In recent years, fiber materials have attracted much attention as cell scaffold materials in medicine, particularly in regenerative medicine. In this paper, the current status of application of fiber materials such as nonwoven fabrics and hydrogels of nanofibers of biopolymers and biodegradable synthetic polymers in regenerative medicine is explained. Recent advances by the authors in three dimensional culture of cells using silica nano nonwoven fabric will be also addressed.

A key requirement of paints is that they should flow and form a film. Here, resins for paints play a big role. The transition of paint resins is described for coating systems for large-scale steel buildings. In addition, as cross-linking type paints are generally used in many industrial fields it is explained how to determine the molecular weight between cross links for polyamide cured epoxy resin paint films. Finally, the monomer composition of acrylic resins, which are the most commonly used type of resin for paint, is summarised.