One-step hydrothermal synthesis of nitrogen doped reduced graphene oxide-silver nanocomposites: Catalytic performance

The aim of this study is to efficiently utilize catalytic properties of silver nanoparticles and nitrogen doped graphene and their combined synergistic effect. For this purpose, nitrogen doped reduced graphene oxide-silver (NrGO-Ag) nanocomposites were synthesized by a facile, environmentally friendly, one-pot hydrothermal method for the first time and characterized by UV–Vis, FTIR, XRD, XPS, SEM, and TEM. Catalytic activity of the synthesized nanocomposites was tested against 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and methylene blue (MB) reduction reactions in the presence of NaBH₄. Total degradation was achieved in both reactions in 210 and 44 s, and pseudo first order reaction rate constants were calculated as 0.0071 and 0.0322 s⁻¹ for 4-NP and MB reduction reactions, respectively.     

Synthesis and Spectrothermal Studies of Thermochromic Diamine Complexes of Cobalt(III), Nickel(II) and Copper(II) Squarate. Crystal Structure of [Co(en)3](sq)1.5 · 6H2O

New adducts of ethylenediamine (en), N,N-dimethylethylenediamine (ndmen) and N,N′-dimethylethylenediamine (dmen) with squarate as counter-ions were synthesized and characterized by physico-chemical methods (IR and UV/vis spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility and thermoanalytical measurements). The crystal structure of tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt(III) 1.5 squarate hexahydrate, [Co(en)₃](sq)_1.5 · 6H₂O, was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Co(III), Ni(II) and Cu(II) ions in the monomeric octahedral tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt(III) 1.5 squarate hexahydrate (1), tris(ethylenediamine)nickel(II) squarate 0.5 hydrate (2) and diaquabis(ethylenediamine)copper(II) squarate dihydrate (3) are chelated by ethylenediamines through two amine nitrogen atoms. Cu(II) atoms in the diaquabis(ndmen)copper(II) squarate (4) and diaquabis(dmen)copper(II) squarate (5) monomeric octahedral complexes are coordinated by ndmen and dmen molecules through two amine nitrogen atoms in a bidentate chelating manner. Water molecules complete the octahedral coordination. The orange (1), violet (4) and violet (5) complexes upon heating transform to claret, green and green species on dehydration, respectively, which revert immediately after cooling in the open atmosphere. The violet (3) complex upon heating loses water molecules yielding a deep blue dehydrated species, which on further heating undergoes an exothermic phase transition accompanied by thermochromism, deep blue to brown in the solid state. The decomposition mechanism and thermal stability of the solid complexes are interpreted in terms of their structures. The final decomposition products – the respective metal oxides – were identified by IR spectroscopy.     

Syntheses and characterization of two copper pyridine-dicarboxylate compounds containing water clusters

A new homonuclear and heterodinuclear pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate complexes, formulated as (enH₂)[Cu(dipic)₂]·2.5H₂O (1) and [Cu(μ-dipic)₂Zn(H₂O)₅]·2H₂O (2) (en = ethylenediamine, dipic = pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate) were synthesized according the reactions between the three species of copper(II) and zinc(II) nitrate, ethylenediamine and pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid. Complexes have been characterized by the methods of elemental, spectroscopic (IR and UV–Vis), thermal (TG/DTG, DTA) analysis, magnetic measurement and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Correlation coefficient, activation energies, E∗; pre-exponential factor, A; entropies, S∗; enthalpies, H∗ and Gibbs free energies, G∗ of the thermal decomposition reactions have been calculated under the derivations from thermogravimetric (TG) and differential thermogravimetric (DTG) curves, using the Coats–Redfern and Horowitz–Metzger methods. Complex 1 belonged to a six-coordinate behavior with a distorted octahedral geometry around Cu(II), that the structure contains two pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate species as a tridentate ligands and ethylenediaminium cation as a counter ion as well as 2.5 uncoordinated water molecules. On the other hand complex 2 contains six-coordinated Cu(II) and Zn(II) ions, which are linked by two O atoms of the same carboxyl group from dipicolinic acid. The dipicolinate dianions again behave as tridentate ligands in 2. Two uncoordinated water molecules are also present in the structure. The structure units of 1 and 2 are mutually held by the hydrogen bonds and π?π interactions. There is also a C–O?π interaction in 2. The Cu(II) complexes are connected to one another via O–H?O hydrogen bonds, forming water clusters, which play an important role in the stabilization of the crystal structure. In the water clusters, the water molecules are trapped by the cooperative association of coordination interactions as well as hydrogen bonds.     

Analysis of the Effect of Potential Cycles on the Reflective Infrared Signals of Nitro Groups in Nanofilms: Application of the Fractional Moments Statistics

The effect of the potential cycles on the reflective IR signals of nitro‐groups in nanofilms was studied for the statistical characterization of nitrobenzene (NB) and nitroazobenzene (NAB)‐modified glassy carbon (GC) surfaces. Both NB and NAB nanofilms were obtained by the electrochemical reduction of the diazonium tetrafluoroborate salts in acetonitrile using cyclic voltammetry (CV). The modified surfaces were denoted as GC‐(NB)_n and GC‐(NAB)_n, respectively, where n indicates the number of CV cycles performed during modification. Reflective IR signals of the normalized NB and NAB nanofilms and GC were used for the quantitative evaluation of the effect of the potential cycles on the reflective IR signals of nitro‐groups in nanofilms. The detection and quantitative ‘reading’ of the influence of number of CV cycles were realized in the frame of a new error controllable approach that was applied for analysis of all available set of data. This approach includes in itself the following basic steps: (a) the procedure of the division (normalization) on the GC spectra, (b) the comparison of the smoothed spectra for their statistical proximity in the frame of the statistics of the fractional moments, (c) extraction of possible calibration parameters for possible calibration of the normalized spectra with respect to the number of CV cycles. These three basic steps are becoming effective for detection of the influence of some external factors. In our case it is important to detect the influence of the factor n characterizing CV cycles.     

Trajectory-tracking of 6-RSS Stewart-Gough manipulator by feedback-linearization control using a novel inverse dynamic model based on the force distribution algorithm

ABSTRACT

6-RSS Stewart-Gough parallel manipulator contains six crank-rod limbs connecting the base and moving platforms to each other, forming a 6DOF manipulator. In this paper, we introduce a novel decoupled inverse dynamic model for this manipulator based on the Force Distribution Algorithm. The performance of the proposed model was evaluated in tracking a complex trajectory (of multiple segments with simultaneous translational and rotational motions) using feedback-linearization control in the joint space and compared with that of the Lagrangian inverse dynamic model. Results showed that this model leads to a better performance in feedback-linearization control, especially when the reference trajectory is quantized, and with less calculation burden in comparison with the Lagrangian model. The control system employing both models showed robustness against payload uncertainty on the moving platform (150% of the moving platform’s mass). The performance assessment and the robustness approval were performed in simulation using a Simscape model specifically built for this purpose in the Simulink environment.     

A generalisation of a theorem of Koldunov with an elementary proof

We generalize a Theorem of Koldunov [2] and prove that a disjointness proserving quasi-linear operator between Resz spaces has the Hammerstein property.     

Synthesis,Spectrothermal Behaviour and Molecular Structure of Aquaorotatotriethanolaminenickel(II) Monohydrate

The aquaorotatotriethanolaminenickel(II) monohydrate, [Ni(HOr)(H₂O)(tea)]·H₂O ( 1 ), was synthesized and characterized by means of elementel analysis, IR and UV‐Vis, spectroscopy, magnetic susceptibility, thermal analysis and X‐ray diffraction techniques. The nickel ion in [Ni(C₅H₂N₂O₄)(H₂O)(N(C₂H₄OH)₃)] is chelated to the deprotonated N3 pyrimidine atom and to the carboxylate oxygen atom of the bidentate orotate dianion, and to the one nitrogen and two oxygen atoms of the tridentate triethanolamine molecule and its octahedral geometry is completed by an aqua ligand. It crystallizes in the monoclinic system, space group P2₁/c with lattice parameters a = 7.1528(5) Å, b = 19.4903(14) Å, c = 11.8085(8) Å, β = 106.237(5)°, V = 1580.55(19) ų, Z = 4. An extensive three dimensional network of O_w‐H…O, N‐H…O and O‐H…O hydrogen bonds, π‐π and π‐ring interactions are responsible for crystal stabilization. The decomposition reaction take places in the temperature range 20‐1000 °C in the static air atmosphere. Thermal decomposition of 1 proceeds in three stages.     

Fused heterocycles: synthesis of some new imidazo[1,2-a]- pyridine derivatives

Some new thiazolidines and spirothiazolidines derived from hydrazones of 2-methylimidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-3-carboxylic acid hydrazide, a bioisosteric derivative of isoniazid, were synthesized and characterized by analytical, IR, (1)H- and (13)C-NMR and mass spectral data. Some of the newly synthesized compounds were screened for their antimycobacterial activities. None of the tested compounds showed significant in vitro antituberculous activity at 6.25 mirog/mL (MIC rifampin 0.031 microg/mL).     

Spin bath decoherence of quantum entanglement

We study an analytically solvable model for decoherence of a two spin system embedded in a large spin environment. As a measure of entanglement, we evaluate the concurrence for the Bell states (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs). We find that while for two separate spin baths all four Bell states lose their coherence with the same time dependence, for a common spin bath, two of the states decay faster than the others. We explain this difference by the relative orientation of the individual spins in the pair. We also examine how the Bell inequality is violated in the coherent regime. Both for one bath and two bath cases, we find that while two of the Bell states always obey the inequality, the other two violate the inequality at early times.     

Stability of gas pressure regulators

Gas pressure regulators are widely used in both commercial and residential applications to control the operational pressure of the gas. One common problem in these systems is the tendency for the regulating apparatus to vibrate in an unstable manner during operation. These vibrations tend to cause an auditory hum in the unit, which may cause fatigue damage and failure if left unchecked. This work investigates the stability characteristics of a specific type of hardware and shows the cause of the vibration and possible design modifications that eliminate the unstable vibration modes. A dynamic model of a typical pressure regulator is developed, and a linearized model is then used to investigate the sensitivity of the most important governing parameters. The values of the design parameters are optimized using root locus techniques, and the design trade-offs are discussed.