What is 'unfreezable water', how unfreezable is it,and how much is there?

Water that remains unfrozen at temperatures below the equilibrium bulk freezing temperature, in the presence of ice, is sometimes called unfreezable or bound. This paper analyses the phenomenon in terms of quantitative measurements of the hydration interaction among membranes or macromolecules at freezing temperatures. These results are related to analogous measurements in which osmotic stress or mechanical compression is used to equilibrate water of hydration with a bulk phase. The analysis provides formulas to estimate, at a given sub-freezing temperature, the amount of unfrozen water due to equilibrium hydration effects. Even at tens of degrees below freezing, this hydration effect alone can explain an unfrozen water volume that considerably exceeds that of a single 'hydration shell' surrounding the hydrophilic surfaces. The formulas provided give a lower bound to the amount of unfrozen water for two reasons. First, the well-known freezing point depression due to small solutes is, to zeroth order, independent of the membrane or macromolecular hydration effect. Further, the unfrozen solution found between membranes or macromolecules at freezing temperatures has high viscosity and small dimensions. This means that dehydration of such systems, especially at freezing temperatures, takes so long that equilibrium is rarely achieved over normal experimental time scales. So, in many cases, the amount of unfrozen water exceeds that expected at equilibrium, which in turn usually exceeds that calculated for a single hydration shell.     

Effects of chlorine gas exposure on the optical properties of rhodium phthalocyanine films

We investigated the effects of exposing rhodium phthalocyanine films deposited on glass substrates by the Lagmuir-Blodgett technique to chlorine gas. The visual aspect of the films is altered upon chlorination, changing in color from blue to transparent. We performed optical absorption and Raman Scattering measurements on our films prior to and after exposing it to chlorine gas. We observed a pronounced quenching of the characteristic triplet centered around the Q-absorption band at 662 nm as a result of chlorine incorporation. Another absorption band, in the near UV part of the spectrum, is not greatly affected by the process. No new optical structures appear as a consequence of chlorination. Equivalent effects were observed in the Raman spectra. Leaving the previously exposed films in air for several hours results in a slow partial recovery of the optical spectra. This recovery, as well as the amount of original quenching, depends on the amount of time during which the film was exposed to chlorine.     

Competitive facilitated transport through liquid membranes

A mathematical model is presented which solves the dimensionless, transient, non-linear partial differential equations governing the competitive facilitated transport of two gases through a liquid membrane. The model incorporates the mass transfer coefficients in the boundary conditions for the free gas concentrations. Several studies were carried out. A comparison of this model with a steady-state “equilibrium core” model was excellent. Through varying the dimensionless parameters, it was found that gas I would have a higher steady-state facilitation factor than gas 2 if k₁ >k₂ and k_-1k_-2. The boundary conditions and mass transfer coefficients were also varied to see their effects on the facilitation factors. The idea of pumping one of the gases against its concentration gradient was shown to be theoretically possible.     

A smog chamber and modeling study of the gas phase NOx–air photooxidation of toluene and the cresols

An experimental and modeling study of irradiated toluene–NO_x–air, toluene–benzaldehyde–NO_x–air, and cresol–NO_x–air mixtures at part-per-million concentrations has been carried out. These mixtures were irradiated at 303 ± 1 K in a 5800-liter Teflon-lined, evacuable environmental chamber, with temperature, humidity, light intensity, spectral distribution, and the concentrations of O₃, NO, NO₂, toluene, PAN, formaldehyde, benzaldehyde, o-cresol, m-nitrotoluene, and methyl nitrate beingmonitored as a function of time. For the toluene and toluene–benzaldehyde–NO_x–air runs a variety of initial reactant concentrations were investigated. Cresol–NO_x–air runs were observed to be much less reactive in terms of O₃ formation and NO to NO₂ conversion rates than toluene–NO_x–air runs, with the relative reactivity of the cresol isomers being in the order meta » ortho > para. The addition of benzaldehyde to toluene–NO_x–air mixtures decreased the reactivity, in agreement with previous studies. Alternative mechanistic pathways for the NO_x photooxidations of aromaticsystems in general are discussed, and the effects of varying these mechanistic alternatives on the model predictions for the toluene and o-cresol–NO_x–air systems are examined. Fits of the calculations to most of the experimental concentration–time profiles could be obtained to within the experimental uncertainty for two of the mechanistic options considered. In both cases it is assumed that (1) O₂ adds to the OH–toluene adduct ～75% of the time forming, after a further addition of O₂, a C₇ bicyclic peroxy radical, and (2) this C₇ bicyclic peroxy radical reacts with NO ～75% of the time to ultimately form α-dicarbonyls and conjugated γ-dicarbonyls (e.g., methylglyoxal + 2-butene-1,4-dial) and ～25% of the time to form organic nitrates. The major uncertainties in the mechanisms concern (1) the structure of the bicyclicperoxy intermediate, and (2) the γ-dicarbonyl photooxidation mechanism. Good fits to the o-cresol concentration–time profiles in the toluene–NO_x runs are obtained if it is assumed that o7-cresol reacts rapidly with NO₃ radicals. However, it is observed that the model underpredicts nitrotoluene yields by a factor of ～10, but this is in any case a minor product. It is concluded that further experimental work will be required toadequately validate the assumptions incorporated in the aromatic photooxidation mechanisms presented here.     

Density functional theory calculation of (29)Si NMR chemical shifts of organosiloxanes

Density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level is applied to calculate the (29)Si NMR chemical shifts of a variety of organosiloxane moieties including monomers or precursors for polymerization and representative segments of organosiloxane polymers or thin films. The calculated shifts of two linear dimethylsiloxane compounds, hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (D3) and octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), compare well with their known values, having an average error of 3.4 ppm. The same method is applied to structures believed to occur in organosilicate glass thin films deposited using hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) from D3 and D4. The chemical shift at -15 ppm is identified as a cross-linking Si-Si bond between two strained D groups and has not previously been reported. Retention of the strained ringed structure in HFCVD films deposited from D3 is confirmed. The rings are bonded to the matrix through either Si-O or Si-Si bonds, with the latter only becoming prevalent when higher filament temperatures are employed. The strained ring structure is also observed in films deposited from a precursor with a larger unstrained ring structure, D4. These observations suggest that the known gas-phase conversion pathways of D4 to D3 and dimethylsilanone as well as the methyl abstraction reaction from D3 operate in the HFCVD reaction chemistry.     

The role of visual speech cues in reducing energetic and informational masking

Two experiments compared the effect of supplying visual speech information (e.g., lipreading cues) on the ability to hear one female talker's voice in the presence of steady-state noise or a masking complex consisting of two other female voices. In the first experiment intelligibility of sentences was measured in the presence of the two types of maskers with and without perceived spatial separation of target and masker. The second study tested detection of sentences in the same experimental conditions. Results showed that visual cues provided more benefit for both recognition and detection of speech when the masker consisted of other voices (versus steady-state noise). Moreover, visual cues provided greater benefit when the target speech and masker were spatially coincident versus when they appeared to arise from different spatial locations. The data obtained here are consistent with the hypothesis that lipreading cues help to segregate a target voice from competing voices, in addition to the established benefit of supplementing masked phonetic information.