Selective ion-imprinted polymers for preconcentration and determination of silver in water and hair by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

A new Ag(I)-ion imprinted polymer (IIP) was prepared by formation of 2-(4-hydroxypent-3-en-2-ylideneamine) phenol complex for selective extraction and preconcentration of silver ions. Polymerization was performed with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as crosslinking monomer and methacrylic acid as functional monomer in the presence of 2,2-azobis(isobutyronitrile) as initiator via bulk polymerization method. The Ag(I)-imprinted polymeric particles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. The template silver ion was removed from the polymeric matrix using 2.0 M HNO₃. Optimum pH for maximum sorption was 6.0. Maximum sorbent capacity and enrichment factor for Ag(I) were 12.5 mg/g and 50, respectively. The relative standard deviation and detection limit of the method were evaluated as ±4% and 2.3 ng/L, respectively. The developed IIP has also been tested for preconcentration and recovery of Ag(I) ions from water and hair samples.     

One-step in-syringe dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction and GC-FID determination of trace amounts of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate and its metabolite in human urine samples

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is used as plasticizer in polyvinylchloride (PVC) plastics. Its metabolites and the parent phthalates are considered toxic. As the DEHP plasticizers are not chemically bound to PVC, they can migrate, evaporate or be leached into indoor air and atmosphere, foodstuff, and other materials. We have reported a novel, easy and available analytical method for the determination of DEHP and its metabolite, mono(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP) in human urine samples by the in-syringe dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction method coupled with gas chromatography with flame ionization detector. The limits of detection and precision (RSD) were 2.5 μg/L and 1.4% for DEHP and 1.1 μg/L and 3.0% for MEHP, respectively. This method could be utilized for routine monitoring of the trace DEHP and MEHP in urine of human exposure to plasticizers.     

Syntheses,crystal, molecular structures,and solution studies of Cu(II), Co(II), and Zn(II) coordination compounds containing pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylic acid and 1,4-pyrazine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid: comparative computational studies of Cu(II) and Zn(II) complexes

Structural Chemistry - Three new coordination compounds of Cu(II), Co(II), and Zn(II) based on different dicarboxylic acids formulated as (AcrH)[Cu(pydc)(pydcH)]·5H2O (1)...     

A computational study of aluminum phosphide nanotubes

Electronic structures of two representative zigzag and armchair models of aluminum phosphide nanotube (AlPNT) were investigated by density functional theory calculations. The structures were optimized and the bond lengths, tip diameters, band gaps, and dipole moments were calculated. Moreover, the quadrupole coupling constants (C_Q) were calculated for the Al‐27 atoms of the optimized structures. The same values of Al? P bond lengths were calculated for both models. The larger value of band gap of armchair model than the zigzag model indicated the stronger dielectric property for the former model. The values of C_Q(²⁷Al) were the largest for the Al atoms placed at the tips of both zigzag and armchair AlPNT than other Al atoms, which could reveal dominant role of the Al atoms placed at the tips of nanotube in determining the electronic properties of the AlPNT. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011     

Microfluidic cell volume sensor with tunable sensitivity

We report the fabrication and validation of a microfluidic cell volume sensor integrated on a multi-layered polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchip with a tunable detection volume for dynamic control of sensitivity, enabling the detection of individual Escherichia coli and microparticles.     

Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Graphene Oxide/Water Nanofluid in a Circular Tube Fitted with Wire Coil Insert

In this work, heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of graphene oxide/water nanofluid flow through a circular tube having a wire coil insert were studied. The required graphene oxide was synthesized via the Hummer method and characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (SRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) methods. Dispersing graphene oxide in the water, nanofluids with 0.02, 0.07, and 0.12% volume fraction were prepared. An experimental set-up was designed and made to investigate the heat transfer performance and pressure loss of nanofluids. All experiments were carried out in the constant heat flux at tube wall conditions. The volumetric flow rates of the nanofluid were adjusted at 6, 8, and 10 L/min. Thermal conductivity, specific heat, density, and viscosity as thermophysical properties of the nanofluid were calculated using graphene oxide and water properties at the average temperature via appropriate relations. These properties were applied to calculate the convective heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, and friction factors for each experiment. Finally, the constant and exponents of Duangthongsuk and Wongwises's correlations for Nusselt number and friction factor were corrected by experimental results. The achieved experimental data have shown good agreement with those predicted. The results have shown that 0.12 vol% of graphene oxide in the water can enhance convective heat transfer coefficient by about 77%. As a result, it can be concluded that the graphene oxide/water can be used in the heat transfer devices to achieve more efficiency.     

Characterizing n-Isoclinism Classes of Lie Algebras

In this article, we introduce the notion of the equivalence relation, n-isoclinism, between Lie algebras, and obtain some criterions under which Lie algebras are n-isoclinic. In particular, we show that n-isoclinic Lie algebras can be isoclinically embedded into one Lie algebra. Also, we present the notion of an n-stem Lie algebra and prove its existence within an arbitrary n-isoclinism class. In addition, similar to a result of Hekster [6 Hekster , N. S. ( 1986 ). On the structure of n-isoclinam classes of groups . J. Pure Appl. Algebra 40 : 63 – 85 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] in the group case, we characterize the n-stem Lie algebras in the n-isoclinism classes which contains at least one finitely generated Lie algebra L with dim (L ⁿ⁺¹) finite.     

Computational studies of the purine-functionalized graphene sheets

We performed a computational work to investigate the properties of functionalized graphene sheets (S) by adenine (A) and guanine (G) purine nucleobases. To achieve the purpose of this work, we examined the functionalization of armchair and zigzag tips of the S model by each of the A and G purines. The results indicated that the optimized properties for the investigated hybrid structures are different depending on the tip of functionalization and the used purine nucleobase. Moreover, the atomic level properties of the investigated structures were investigated by evaluating quadrupole coupling constants (C_Q) for the atoms of the optimized structures. The remarkable trend of the C_Q parameters is that the changes of atomic properties are many more significant for the functionalization of the zigzag-tip by the G nucleobase, which is in agreement with the results of the optimized properties.     

Flexural sensitivity and resonance of cantilever micro-sensors based on nonlocal elasticity theory

Sensors based on microcantilevers, especially ones with uniform structure, have ultrahigh sensitivities. The normalized natural frequencies and the sensitivity of lateral vibration of an elastic microcantilever sensor in contact with a surface are derived analytically based on the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory by taking into account the small scale effect. The interaction of the sensor with the surface is modeled by linear springs, which restricts the results to experiments involving low-amplitude excitations. The results show that the normalized natural frequencies of nonlocal microcantilever are smaller than those for its local counterpart, especially for higher values of small scale parameters. Also, each mode has a different sensitivity to variations in surface stiffness. Moreover, the most sensitivity is observed at the first mode of vibration. When the nonlocal effect is not taken into account, the natural frequencies and the sensitivity of the microcantilever in contact with the surface are compared with those obtained in previous study without considering the nonlocal effect.     

Numerical study of convective heat transfer and fluid flow around two side by side square cylinders using k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f turbulence model

The effect of spacing between two identical square cylinders placed side by side on the fluid flow and heat transfer is numerically investigated using $ k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f $ turbulence model. The present study is performed at Pr = 0.7 and Re = 10,000, 21,000 for different scaled gap spacing between cylinders in the range of Gl = 0.5–6. It should be noted all geometrical lengths such as Gl are scaled with cylinders side. In order to show the accuracy of $ k - \omega - \overline{{\upsilon^{2} }} - f $ model, part of the results such as various flow patterns (flip-flop, in-phase and anti-phase) and global quantities are compared with the available numerical and experimental results and also a Large Eddy Simulation study of the present work. Based on this comparison, a close agreement is observed. The local and averaged flow and thermal quantities are also compared for two side by side square and circular cylinders and some significant similarities and differences are presented. Progressive increasing and decreasing of the distance between cylinders indicates that the hysteresis phenomenon appears for the gap spacing in the range of Gl = 1–2.5. In the hysteresis range, two different patterns are observed for each distance in the aforementioned range. Also in this range, two different values are found for different quantities such as lift and drag coefficients, Strouhal number and Nusselt number.