Formation of 3-Hydroxyalkyl Carbamates from Carbon Dioxide,Amines and Oxetanes

The reactions of carbon dioxide, primary or secondary aliphatic amines and oxetanes at a CO₂ pressure of 40 atm at 100–120°C without any catalysts afforded new monocarbamates of 1,3-propanediols, with concomitant formation of amino alcohols from oxetanes and amines.     

Development of a multi‐scale ocean model by using particle Laplacian method for anisotropic mass transfer

The direct injection of CO₂ into the deep ocean is one of the feasible ways for the mitigation of the global warming, although there is a concern about its environmental impact near the injection point. To minimize its biological impact, it is necessary to make CO₂ disperse as quickly as possible, and it is said that injection with a pipe towed by a moving ship is effective for this purpose. Because the injection ship moves over a spatial scale of O(10²km), a mesoscale model is necessary to analyse the dispersion of CO₂. At the same time, since it is important to investigate high CO₂ concentration near the injection point, a small‐scale model is also required. Therefore, in this study, a numerical model was developed to analyse CO₂ dispersion in the deep ocean by using a fixed mesoscale and a moving small‐scale grid systems, the latter of which is nested and moves in the former along the trajectory of the moving ship. To overcome the artificial diffusion of mass concentration at the interface of the two different grid systems and to keep its spatial accuracy almost the same as that in the small‐scale, a particle Laplacian method was adopted and newly modified for anisotropic diffusion in the ocean. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gap states at organic-metal interfaces: A combined spectroscopic and theoretical study

A systematic understanding and controlling of gap states formed at the organic-metal interfaces is a key factor for fabricating functional organic-metal systems, as in case of heterojunctions in semiconductor devices. We report here the characterization of gap states near the Fermi level of metal substrate by metastable atom electron spectroscopy and first-principles density functional calculations. The gap states in organic-metal systems are classified into two types, i.e., chemisorption-induced gap states (CIGSs) and complex-based gap states (CBGSs). CIGSs can be further classified whether the metal wave function tails a short distance into the chemisorbed species with the exponential decay (damping type) or is exposed sufficiently to the chemisorbed species by mixing with the organic orbitals (propagating type). CIGSs observed in alkanethiolate and C₆₀ on Pt(1 1 1) are their typical examples, respectively. As a consequence, alkanethiolate serves as a poor mediator of metal wave function, whereas C₆₀ acts as a good mediator, which is responsible for tunneling mechanism and eventually electric conductivity in the relevant metal-organic-metal junctions. CBGSs are identified in bathocuproine films deposited on K-covered Au, where the K atoms migrate into the film to form an organic-metal complex. The CBGSs are distributed over the multilayer film, in contrast to the case of CIGS. With increasing film thickness, the CBGSs exhibit incommensurate energy shifts with the valence band top of the film, indicating that the Schottky-Mott model breaks down as evaluating charge transport in organic-metal systems.     

Analysis of flexural wave velocity and vibration mode in thin cylindrical shell

The relationship between the flexural wave velocity and the excited vibration mode of a thin cylindrical shell is investigated. The natural frequency corresponding to the vibration mode is obtained as the solution of characteristic equation of thin cylindrical shell. However, all of these vibration modes are not excited actually. To estimate the excited vibration mode, the concept of "modified bending stiffness" is introduced, and the influence of each stress component upon the modified bending stiffness is analyzed. The excited mode is theoretically discriminated from the nonexcited mode based on the smallness of this modified bending stiffness. The validity of our theory is confirmed by an excellent agreement between theoretical and experimental results on flexural wave velocity.     

UV dose measurements of photosensitive dermatosis patients by polycrystalline GaN-based portable self-data-acquisition UV monitors

We have developed a UV monitor with polycrystalline (poly-) gallium nitride (GaN) UV sensors and evaluated its performance from the viewpoint of its effectiveness for use with photosensitive dermatosis patients. The poly-GaN UV sensor is sensitive to UV light from 280 to 410 nm even without optical filters. The UV monitor is a portable self-data-acquisition instrument with a minimum detection level (defined as average UV intensity over 290 to 400 nm) of 2 microW/cm2 and can store UV dose data for 128 days. It allows easy measurement of four orders of magnitude of ambient UV intensity and dose from indoor light to direct solar radiation in summer. Trial use of the UV monitor by five xeroderma pigmentosum patients started in June 2000 and was carried out for 1 year. It was demonstrated that the UV monitor was useful in improving their quality of life.     

Enhanced optical sensing of anions with amide-functionalized gold nanoparticles

A gold nanoparticle surface-modified with amide ligands shows enhanced optical sensing of anions: the detection limit is increased by about three orders of magnitude higher than that originally expected from the anion binding ability of neutral amide ligands.     

A novel [60]fullerene receptor with a Pd(II)-switched bisporphyrin cleft

Porphyrin dimer 1, which does not have an inside cavity and cannot interact with [60]fullerene (C60), becomes an excellent C60-acceptor with a large cavity in the presence of a Pd(II) complex.