Determination of trace impurities in zircaloy-2 and tellurium by spark source mass spectrometry

Determination of trace impurities in zircaloy-2 and tellurium by Spark Source Mass Spectrometry (SSMS) is reported. The advantage of SSMS lies in the fact that along with metallic trace constituents even the nonmetallic impurities and gases including hydrogen can also be determined.     

Reactions of a 4-(trifluoromethyl)thiazole dianion

Treatment of 2-trifluoroacetamido-4-(trifluoromethyl)thiazole with two equivalents of n-butyllithium at -78° produced the thiazole dianion 5 in situ, which reacted preferentially at the 5-position with a variety of electrophiles. These electrophiles include: an aldehyde, ketone, chloroformate, acid chloride, phosphorus oxychloride, silicon chloride, and disulfide. Dianion 5 also combined with dibromodifluoromethane at -98° to give the corresponding 5-(bromodifluoromethyl)thiazole 7 , which is an unusual reaction for an aromatic or heteroaromatic system. Compound 7 was converted to a 4,5-bis-(trifluoromethyl)thiazole 8 using tetrabutylammonium fluoride.     

Production and characterization ofPhanerochaete chrysosporium lignin peroxidases for pulp bleaching

The production of lignin peroxidase fromPhanerochaete chrysosporium was studied using immobilized mycelia in nylon-web cubes in semicontinuous fermentation using glucose pulses or ammonium tartrate pulses. Consistent enzyme production was achieved when glucose pulses were used, leading to an average activity of 253 U/L. The crude enzyme was added to eucalyptus kraft pulp before conventional and ECF bleaching sequences. Optimization of the enzymatic pretreatment led to the following operational conditions: enzyme load of 2 U/g of pulp, hydrogen peroxide addition rate of 10 ppm/h, and reaction time of 60 min. Pulp final characteristics were dependent on the chemical treatment sequence that followed enzymatic pretreatment. The chief advantage of enzymatic pretreatment was pulp viscosity preservation, which was observed in most of the experiments carried out with seven different chemical treatment sequences     

A stable lipase fromCandida lipolytica

Although Upases have been intensively studied, some aspects of enzyme production like substrate uptake, catabolite repression, and enzyme stability under long storage periods are seldom discussed in the literature. This work deals with the production of lipase by a new selected strain ofCandida lipolytica. Concerning nutrition, it was observed that inorganic nitrogen sources were not as effective as peptone, and that oleic acid or triacylglycerides (TAG) were essential carbon sources. Repression by glucose and stimulation by oleic acid and long chain TAG (triolein and olive oil) were observed. Extracellular lipase activity was only observed at high levels at late stationary phase, whereas intracellular lipase levels were constant and almost undetectable during the cultivation period, suggesting that the produced enzyme was attached to the cell wall, mainly at the beginning of cultivation. The crude lipase produced by this yeast strain shows the following optima conditions: pH 8.0–10.0, temperature of 55°C. Moreover, this preparation maintains its full activity for at least 370 d at 5°C.     

Application of Hadamard spectroscopy to automated structure verification in high‐throughput NMR

Combined verification using 1‐D proton and HSQC has been proved to be quite successful; the acquisition time of HSQC spectra, however, can be limiting in its high‐throughput applications. The replacement with Hadamard HSQC can significantly enhance the throughput. We hereby propose a protocol to optimize the grouping of the predicted carbon chemical shifts from the proposed structure and the associated Hadamard frequencies and bandwidths. The resulting Hadamard HSQC spectra compare favorably with their Fourier‐transformed counterparts, and have demonstrated to perform equivalently in terms of combined verification, but with several fold enhancement in throughput, as illustrated for 21 commercial available molecules and 16 prototypical drug compounds. Further improvement of the verification accuracy can be achieved by the cross validation from Hadamard TOCSY, which can be acquired without much sacrifice in throughput. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dehydration of aqueous acetonitrile solution by pervaporation using PVA–iron oxide nanocomposite membrane

Pervaporative performances were investigated for dehydration of water–acetonitrile using nanocomposite metal oxide and Pervap^® 2202 membranes. Poly (vinyl alcohol) based nanocomposite metal oxide membranes were prepared through co-precipitation of different amounts of Fe (II) and Fe (III). The freestanding nanocomposite metal oxide membranes were characterized by Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Sorption studies evaluated the extent of interaction and degree of swelling of the membranes. Fe containing PVA polymer matrix showed improved flux and selectivity. In order to observe simultaneous effect of flux and selectivity, pervaporation separation index showed 10 wt.% iron oxide containing membrane is the most amongst all tested. The diffusion coefficients were calculated using pervaporation results and sorption kinetics data. An attempt was made to predict sorption selectivity thermodynamically. PV separation factor was observed to be governed by sorption and/or diffusion phenomena and sorption selectivity was found to be higher than PV separation factor. Prediction of concentration profile in the membrane was also attempted and the results showed that water concentration in the membrane drops down with increase in membrane thickness.     

Investigation of whole blood of SJL/J mice using neutron activation analysis

The Br (0.0022 ± 0.0006 gL⁻¹), Ca (0.113 ± 0.012 gL⁻¹), Cl (3.07 ± 0.36 gL⁻¹), K (2.63 ± 0.14 gL⁻¹), Mg (0.045 ± 0.002 gL⁻¹) and Na (2.09 ± 0.10 gL⁻¹) concentrations were determined in whole blood of SJL/J mice using the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) technique. Eleven whole blood samples were analyzed in the IEA-R1 nuclear reactor at IPEN (S?o Paulo, Brazil). These data contribute for applications in veterinary medicine related to biochemistry analyses using whole blood. Moreover, the correlation with human blood estimation allows to checking the similarities for studying muscular dystrophy using this model animal.     

Diastereoselective Synthesis of New Dialkylphosphorylhydrazones

A series of 22 dialkylphosphorylydrazones (dialkyl ester, N′-[(1E)-(R₁ phenyl)methylene]-phosphorohydrazidic acid), 20 of them new, along with three new N,N′-bis (diisobutylphosphorylthioamide)diamines (bis-[diisobutyl ester), N-thioxomethylene]-, diamine)phosphora-midic acid, were prepared and characterized by IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, ³¹P NMR, and mass spectrometry. The analysis of ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, ³¹P NMR, and NOE spectra confirmed the observation of the single diastereoisomer E in the synthesis of dialkylphosphorylydrazones. The results of a molecular modeling study performed in order to investigate the mechanism of the synthesis of dialkylphosphorylydrazones are in agreement with the experimental results, i.e., the favored formation of diastereoisomer E over Z.