Determination of zinc,cadmium, lead and copper in sea water by means of computerized potentiometric stripping analysis

Water samples from the Arctic Sea were analyzed by the potentiometric stripping technique. Lead(II) and cadmium(II) were determined after pre-electrolysis for 32 min at—1.1 V vs. Ag/AgCl, the detection limits being 0.06 and 0.04 nM, respectively. Zinc(II) was determined after the addition of gallium(III) by pre-electrolysis for 16 min at —1.4 V vs. Ag/AgCl, the detection limit being 0.25 nM. Problems in the determination of copper(II) at the very low concentrations found in oceanic waters are outlined. The average zinc(II), cadmium(II) and lead(II) concentrations in eight different samples were 2.5, 0.16 and 0.10 nM as determined by potentiometric stripping analysis and 1.9, 0.16 and 0.09 nM as determined by solvent extraction/atomic absorption spectrometry. The advantages of this computerized technique for the analysis of sea water are discussed.     

The structure of defect Ru4Si3

The nature of the defect structure of Ru₄Si₃ has been studied with electron diffraction and electron microscopy methods. Lattice image pictures, interpreted with histogram analysis, reveal that planar defects of chemical twinning type are common in the crystals.     

New Approaches to Coupling TLC with TOF-SIMS

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - A new hyphenated technique that enables coupling of thin-layer chromatography (TLC) with time-of-flight secondary-ion mass...     

Asymmetric base-mediated epoxide isomerisation

The base-mediated rearrangement of epoxides into allylic alcohols is a well-known synthetic transformation. The first enantioselective version of the reaction using a chiral base was reported in 1980. Since then, the reaction has received a lot of attention mostly due to the great usefulness of chiral allylic alcohols in organic synthesis. Major breakthroughs in the area were the first report on using a sub-stoichiometric amount of chiral base, and the development of chiral bases for a true catalytic reaction protocol. The present review covers the time from when the first asymmetric epoxide isomerisation reaction was reported (1980) up to now, focusing on the period 1997-2001.     

Feasibility of a liquid-phase microextraction sample clean-up and liquid chromatographic/mass spectrometric screening method for selected anabolic steroid glucuronides in biological samples

Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are metabolized extensively in the human body, resulting mainly in the formation of glucuronide conjugates. Current detection methods for AAS are based on gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric (GC/MS) analysis of the hydrolyzed steroid aglycones. These analyses require laborious sample preparation steps and are therefore time consuming. Our interest was to develop a rapid and straightforward method for intact steroid glucuronides in biological samples, using liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) sample clean-up and concentration method combined with liquid chromatographic/tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) analysis. The applicability of LPME was optimized for 13 steroid glucuronides, and compared with conventional liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedures. An LC/MS/MS method was developed for the quantitative detection of AAS glucuronides, using a deuterium-labeled steroid glucuronide as the internal standard. LPME, owing to its high specificity, was shown to be better suited than conventional LLE and SPE for the clean-up of urinary AAS glucuronides. The LPME/LC/MS/MS method was fast and reliable, offering acceptable reproducibility and linearity with detection limits in the range 2-20 ng ml(-1) for most of the selected AAS glucuronides. The method was successfully applied to in vitro metabolic studies, and also tested with an authentic forensic urine sample. For a urine matrix the method still has some unsolved problems with specificity, which should be overcome before the method can be reliably used for doping analysis, but still offering additional and complementary data for current GC/MS analyses.     

Peak compression effects in capillary electrochromatography of basic drug substances using a strong cation-exchanger

Peak compression effects in capillary electrochromatography of basic drug substances using a strong cation-exchanger have been studied. Extremely narrow peaks with apparent efficiencies of several million plates per meter could be obtained when the composition of the sample zone differed from that of the mobile phase. The increased efficiencies were predominately observed when the analyte had an elution time similar to that of the electroosmotic flow marker. Peak compression was found to be reproducible and could be obtained for all investigated basic drug substances by altering the composition of the mobile phase in such a way that the analyte co-eluted with the sample zone. An explanation of the observed phenomena is proposed. A sample zone differing in composition from the mobile phase will disturb the equilibrium between the stationary and mobile phase. The elution rate of an analyte will consequently be different when residing inside the sample zone. If the analyte migrates through the sample zone at a higher speed than the rest of the mobile phase and is strongly retained after passing through a boundary in the sample zone, a continuous stacking can be obtained trapping the analyte as a very narrow band.     

Chemical fourling on the unit cell level as a structure-building operation in the solid state

Chemical fourling on the unit-cell level is introduced as a structure-building operation in the solid state. A chemical fourling structure is achieved when two twin planes are perpendicular to each other. Each fourling unit has infinite extension in only one direction and can be related to a well-known structure type or packing of atoms. The structures of the tetragonal tungsten bronzes M_xWO₃ and Pd(NH₃)₄Cl · H₂O are presented as examples of chemical fourlings of cubic close packing. The structures of SeO₂, Mn₂Hg₅, and Zr₂F₇O are shown to be a sequence of chemical fourlings of primitive cubic packing. Chemical fourling units of hexagonal close packing are found in the structures of tetragonal Ti₃Sb, α-V₃S and Sb₆O₇(SO₄)₂. The structures of CuAl₂, SeTl, NbTe₄, Ti₃Sb, and MnU₆ all have the same chemical fourling unit. Cr₂₃C₆ is described as a bounded chemical fourling of cubic close packing.     

Liquid-phase microextraction of protein-bound drugs under non-equilibrium conditions

Recently, we introduced an inexpensive and disposable hollow fiber-based device for liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) where ionic analytes typically were extracted and preconcentrated from 1-4 mL aqueous samples (such as plasma and urine) through an organic solvent immobilized in the pores of a polypropylene hollow fiber and into a 10-25 microL volume of acceptor phase present inside the lumen of the hollow fiber. Subsequently, the acceptor phase was directly subjected to the final analysis by a chromatographic or electrophoretic method. In the present work, attention was focused on LPME of the basic drugs amphetamine, pethidine, promethazine, methadone and haloperidol characterized by substantial differences in the degree of protein binding. Drug-protein interactions in plasma resulted in reduced recoveries and substantially increased extraction times compared with extraction of the drugs from a pure water matrix. However, by addition of 5-50% methanol to the plasma samples, recoveries were comparable with LPME from water samples and ranged between 75 and 100%. The addition of methanol was found not to speed up the LPME process and extractions from plasma were performed in 45 min to reach equilibrium. Because approximately 55-70% of the final analyte concentrations were achieved within the initial 10 min of the LPME process, validation was accomplished after 10 and 45 min of LPME. In general, the results with 10 and 45 min were almost comparable, with precision data in the range 1.2-11.1% (RSD) and with linearity in the concentration range 20-1000 ng mL(-1) (r = 0.999). In conclusion, excellent LPME results may be achieved in a short time under non-equilibrium conditions with a minor loss of sensitivity. In cases of drug-protein interactions, methanol may be added to ensure a high extraction recovery.