Measurement and prediction of solubilities and diffusion coefficients of carbon dioxide in starch–water mixtures at elevated pressures

The solubility and diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide in intermediate‐moisture starch–water mixtures were determined both experimentally and theoretically at elevated pressures up to 16 MPa at 50 °C. A high‐pressure decay sorption system was assembled to measure the equilibrium CO₂ mass uptake by the starch–water system. The experimentally measured solubilities accounted for the estimated swollen volume by Sanchez–Lacombe equation of state (S‐L EOS) were found to increase almost linearly with pressure, yielding 4.0 g CO₂/g starch–water system at 16 MPa. Moreover, CO₂ solubilities above 5 MPa displayed a solubility increase, which was not contributed by the water fraction in the starch–water mixture. The solubilities, however, showed no dependence on the degree of gelatinization (DG) of starch. The diffusion coefficient of CO₂ was found to increase with concentration of dissolved CO₂, which is pressure‐dependent, and decrease with increasing DG in the range of 50–100%. A free‐volume‐based diffusion model proposed by Areerat was employed to predict the CO₂ diffusivity in terms of pressure, temperature, and the concentration of dissolved CO₂. S‐L EOS was once more used to determine the specific free volume of the mixture system. The predicted diffusion coefficients showed to correlate well with the measured values for all starch–water mixtures. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 607–621, 2006     

Effect of glass bead packing on the fibrillation of liquid‐crystalline polymer in polycarbonate

Polycarbonate (PC) was melt blended with small amount of liquid‐crystalline polymer (LCP) and various contents of glass beads (GB) having different diameters. The rheological measurements indicated that the GB addition increased the viscosity ratio and seemed unfavorable to the LCP fibrillation. However, the morphological observation showed that the LCP fibrillation was promoted by the GB addition and varied with the GB packing. With the increased GB packing by increasing the GB content and/or decreasing the GB diameter, LCP deformed from spheres and ellipsoids into stretched ellipsoids at lower shear rates and into long fibrils at higher shear rates. Although higher content of smaller GB jammed into the larger LCP droplets and inhibited the LCP fibrillation, very long LCP fibrils formed at higher shear rates at a high enough packing of GB. The relationship between GB packing and LCP fibrillation revealed two kinds of hydrodynamic effects of GB promoting the LCP fibrillation: at lower GB packing, the shear flow was enhanced by the high local shear between GB, in quantity; and for a high enough GB packing, the shear flow was changed, in quality, into elongational flow, which was more effective for the LCP fibrillation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 1020–1030, 2006     

Automated method, based on micro-sequential injection, for the study of enzyme kinetics and inhibition.

A micro-reactor system with continual spectrophotometric detection has been operated in Sequential Injection lab-on-valve (SI-LOV) mode and applied to enzyme kinetics and inhibition studies, using acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) as model systems. With the advantages of automation, real-time kinetic measurement, and thorough mixing, the SI-LOV micro-reactor system allows for the monitoring of initial reaction rates and determination of reactant concentrations in the reaction mixture, both of which are essential for the determination of kinetic constants for enzymes and inhibitors. Enzyme, substrate, and inhibitor are precisely metered by the syringe pump and delivered to a stirred micro-reactor, followed by a reference scan that establishes the baseline for the following reaction rate measurement. Michaelis constants (Km) for AChE and ACE were determined to be 0.16 mM and 0.30 mM, respectively, which are consistent with literature values. The type of inhibition (competitive, uncompetitive, or mixed), the dissociation constants for the inhibitors, and the inhibitor dose-response curves were also determined.     

Fluorometric study on the interaction between lomefloxacin and bovine lactoferrin.

The binding of lomefloxacin to bovine lactoferrin (BLf) in a dilute aqueous solution was studied using fluorescence spectra. The binding constant (K) and the number of binding sites (n) were obtained by a fluorescence quenching method. The binding distance (r) and energy-transfer efficiency (E) between lomefloxacin and bovine lactoferrin were also obtained according to the mechanism of Fo?rster-type dipole-dipole nonradiative energy-transfer. The effect of lomefloxacin on the conformation of bovine lactoferrin was also analyzed by synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy. The interaction between lomefloxacin and bovine lactoferrin is strong. Lomefloxacin can affect the conformation of bovine lactoferrin to some degree.     

Effect of a low magnetic field on crystallinity and magnetic susceptibility of molecular magnet {NBu4[FeCr(ox)3]}x (NBu4=tetra( n-butyl) ammonium ion; ox=oxalate ion)

Molecular magnet {NBu₄[Fe Cr(ox)₃]}_x (NBu₄⁺=tetra(n-buty1) ammonium ion; ox²⁻=oxalate ion) was synthesized under an applied low magnetic field of 0.3 T in comparison to that synthesized without a field. Their crystallinities, morphologies and magnetic properties were characterized by using the X-ray diffractionmeter, the transmission electron microscope, and a superconducting quantum interference device. It is found that the average size of particles synthesized under the applied field appears larger than that synthesized without a field. Moreover, its crystallinity, morphology and magnetic susceptibility have also been improved. However, its chemical structure and ferromagnetic phase transition temperature T_c do not change. Possible reasons to explain this effect are also discussed.     

Exponential convergence for one dimensional contact processes

The complete convergence theorem implies that starting from any initial distribution the one dimensional contact process converges to a limit ast. In this paper we give a necessary and sufficient condition on the initial distribution for the convergence to occur with exponential rapidity.This work was discussed while the authors were visiting the Nankai Mathematics Institute in Tianjin.Partially supported by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University, and a Guggenheim fellowship.Research supported by the National Science Foundation of China.     

Percolation and electrical resistivity in the YBa2Cu3O7−Ag composite system

We have measured the resistivity of the YBa₂Cu₃O₇–Ag composite system with Ag volume fraction,p _Ag ranging from 0–100%. The percolation behavior and the normal-state resistivity are studied. We find a three-dimensional threshold for the Ag matrix occurring atp _Ag 20% and a threshold for the superconducting matrix occurring at 1–p _Ag30%. The electrical resistivity is interpreted in terms of a resistivity model for granular YBa₂Cu₃O₇ proposed by Halbritter et al. [Z. Phys. B —Condensed Matter71, 411 (1988)]. Based on this model, we show that the resistivities between the YBa₂Cu₃O₇ grains and flaws in the grains are greatly diminished in the samples, indicating significantly improved grain growth behavior of the YBa₂Cu₃O₇ phase resulting from the addition of Ag. With the diminishing of the grain boundary resistivities, an intrinsic value for the temperature coefficient of resistivity, (1/gr)(d/dT), can be inferred, which is 3.3×10^–3/K at 300 K. This value is very close to that observed in the Cu–O₂ planes in single crystals and epitaxial films of YBa₂Cu₃O₇.     

The asymptotic properties of the multichannel autoregressive spectral estimates

If we fit a-vector stationary time series using observationsx(1), ...,x(T) with AR models , then the spectral densityf() of {x(t)} can be estimated byf _k ^(T) ()=(2)^– A _k ^(T) (e ^–)^–1 _k ^(T) A _k ^(T) (e ^–i)^–, where are estimates of the variance matrix of(t), the residuals of the best linear prediction. By extending some results for the scalar case, this paper treats the asymptotic properties of the estimates in the multichannel case.     

Molecular dynamics studies on octadecylammonium chloride at the air/liquid interface

Molecular dynamics simulations on surfactant octadecylammonium chloride at the air/liquid interface were performed. It was found that the alkyl chains of octadecylammonium would change to order with increasing the concentration of octadecylammonium at the air/liquid interface. Some functions, such as the concentration distributions, the radial distribution function and the mean squared displacement (MSD) were evaluated to investigate the structural properties of interface. We found that the salts can affect octadecylammonium aggregate at the interface: (1) univalent ions, such as chloride and sodium ions, affect slightly the structure of monolayer and (2) bivalent ions, such as sulfate or calcium ions, affect greatly, especially for the bivalent negative ions.