A method of processing a carbon fiber tow includes the steps of providing a carbon fiber tow made of a plurality of carbon filaments, depositing a sizing composition at spaced-apart sizing sites along a length of the tow, leaving unsized interstitial regions of the tow, and cross-cutting the tow into a plurality of segments. Each segment includes at least a portion of one of the sizing sites and at least a portion of at least one of the unsized regions of the tow, the unsized region including and end portion of the segment.

A crosslinked, co-polymer hydrogel film has a continuous spatial gradient of functional co-monomers across a dimension of the film. A method of manufacturing a hydrogel film includes preparing a solution of a hydrogel-forming polymer, a functional ionic co-monomer, a polymerization initiator, an accelerator, and a solvent, transferring the solution to a mold and arranging the mold between two electrodes, applying a voltage to the electrodes to cause the ionic co-monomer to migrate towards an oppositely charged one of the two electrodes, and applying a polymerization energy to the solution to fix a position of the co-monomers within a resulting polymer matrix.

A method of processing a carbon fiber tow includes the steps of providing a carbon fiber tow made of a plurality of carbon filaments, depositing a sizing composition at spaced-apart sizing sites along a length of the tow, leaving unsized interstitial regions of the tow, and cross-cutting the tow into a plurality of segments. Each segment includes at least a portion of one of the sizing sites and at least a portion of at least one of the unsized regions of the tow, the unsized region including and end portion of the segment.

A method of processing a carbon fiber tow includes the steps of providing a carbon fiber tow made of a plurality of carbon filaments, depositing a sizing composition at spaced-apart sizing sites along a length of the tow, leaving unsized interstitial regions of the tow, and cross-cutting the tow into a plurality of segments. Each segment includes at least a portion of one of the sizing sites and at least a portion of at least one of the unsized regions of the tow, the unsized region including and end portion of the segment.

Various embodiments are described herein for a system and method for breaking down a composite polymer object. The method for breaking down a composite polymer object can comprise: sealing the composite polymer object inside a flexible bag, the composite polymer object comprising an embedded component (such as fibers or fillers) and a polymer matrix component (such as resin); wherein the embedded component and polymer matrix component are chemically bonded; circulating a solvent through the flexible bag, the solvent having a chemical reaction with the composite polymer object that frees the embedded component from the thermoset polymer matrix component, the flexible bag being degradation resistant to the solvent; and recovering the embedded component from the polymer matrix component.

Provided is a method for producing a bisphenol by removing, from a mixed solution containing a bisphenol and another resin other than a polycarbonate resin, the another resin to obtain the bisphenol, the method including a step in which the bisphenol is precipitated out of an aromatic monoalcohol-containing solution in which the bisphenol and the another resin are dissolved in a solvent containing an aromatic monoalcohol to obtain a slurry of the bisphenol, and the slurry of the bisphenol is then subjected to solid-liquid separation to obtain a crude cake of the bisphenol and a mother liquor.