Detailed balanceThe principle of detailed balance can be used in kinetic systems which are decomposed into elementary processes (collisions, or steps, or elementary reactions). It states that at equilibrium, each elementary process is in equilibrium with its reverse process. The principle of detailed balance was explicitly introduced for collisions by Ludwig Boltzmann. In 1872, he proved his H-theorem using this principle. The arguments in favor of this property are founded upon microscopic reversibility.
Photo-oxidation of polymersIn polymer chemistry photo-oxidation (sometimes: oxidative photodegradation) is the degradation of a polymer surface due to the combined action of light and oxygen. It is the most significant factor in the weathering of plastics. Photo-oxidation causes the polymer chains to break (chain scission), resulting in the material becoming increasingly brittle. This leads to mechanical failure and, at an advanced stage, the formation of microplastics. In textiles the process is called phototendering.
Bismuth germanateBismuth germanium oxide or bismuth germanate is an inorganic chemical compound of bismuth, germanium and oxygen. Most commonly the term refers to the compound with chemical formula (BGO), with the cubic evlitine crystal structure, used as a scintillator. (The term may also refer to a different compound with formula Bi12GeO20, an electro-optical material with sillenite structure, and .) Bi4Ge3O12 has a cubic crystal structure (a = 1.0513 nm, z = 4, Pearson symbol cI76, space group I3d No. 220) and a density of 7.
Prime idealIn algebra, a prime ideal is a subset of a ring that shares many important properties of a prime number in the ring of integers. The prime ideals for the integers are the sets that contain all the multiples of a given prime number, together with the zero ideal. Primitive ideals are prime, and prime ideals are both primary and semiprime. An ideal P of a commutative ring R is prime if it has the following two properties: If a and b are two elements of R such that their product ab is an element of P, then a is in P or b is in P, P is not the whole ring R.
