Immobilizing redox enzymes at mesoporous and nanostructured electrodes

Three key challenges are stimulating intensive research in the development of productive direct electron transfer mode enzyme electrodes: proper enzyme orientation, high enzyme loading, and full retention of enzyme activity. In this review, we summarize some significant advances that have been reported in the last years on the design of mesoporous and nanostructured electrodes as enzyme scaffolds and of innovative methodologies for wiring enzymes to electrodes. Particular attention is given to investigations on physical factors that determine a favorable enzyme immobilization, to provide rational guidelines for the design of productive enzymatic electrodes. Finally, some emerging trends focused on the spatial organization of either single enzymes or enzyme cascades are also briefly addressed.     

Negatively Charged Metallacarborane Redox Couples with Both Members Stable to Air

The metallacarborane [3,3′‐Co(1,2‐closo‐C₂B₉H₁₁)₂]^? has been synthesized. This species allows the formation of redox couples in which both partners are negatively charged. The E_1/2 potential can be tuned by adjusting the nature and number of substituents on B and C. The octaiodinated species [3,3′‐Co(1,2‐closo‐C₂B₉H₇I₄)₂]^? is the most favorable, as it is isolatable and stable in air. A DFT study on stability and redox potentials of complexes has been performed.     

Collective Tunnelling of Strongly Interacting Cold Atoms in a Double-Well Potential

It is known that under resonance conditions, a group of strongly interacting bosonic atoms, trapped in a double-well potential, mimics a single particle, performing Rabi oscillations between the wells. By implication, all atoms need to tunnel at roughly the same time, even though the Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonian accounts only for one-atom-at-a-time transfers. The mechanism of this collective behavior is analyzed, the Rabi frequencies in the process are evaluated, and the limitation of this simple picture is discussed. In particular, it is shown that the small rapid oscillations superimposed on the slow Rabi cycle result from splitting the transferred cluster at the sudden onset of tunnelling, and disappear if tunnelling is turned on gradually.     

Evaluation of singular integrals for anisotropic elastic boundary element analysis

To improve the numerical evaluation of weakly singular integrals appearing in the boundary element method, a logarithmic Gaussian quadrature formula is usually suggested in the literature. In this formula the singular function is expressed in terms of the distance between source point and field point, which is a real variable. When an anisotropic elastic solid is considered, most of the existing fundamental solutions are written in terms of complex variables. When the problems with holes, cracks, inclusions, or interfaces are considered, to suit for the shape of the boundaries usually a mapping function is introduced and then the solutions are expressed in terms of mapped complex variables. To deal with the trouble induced by the complex variables, in this study through proper change of variables we develop a simple way to improve the evaluation of weakly singular integrals, especially for the problems of anisotropic elastic solids containing holes, cracks, inclusions, or interfaces. By simple matrix expansion, the proposed method is extended to the problems with piezoelectric or magneto-electro-elastic solids. By using the dual reciprocity method, the proposed method employed for the elastostatic fundamental solution can also be applied to the elastodynamic analysis.     

Electroanalysis in environmental monitoring: Tracking trace metals—A mini review

Recent advancements in electroanalytical methodologies for the analysis of trace metals in natural waters are summarized. The research and technological progress was centered on the development of new “green” sensors, as well as well-established electroanalytical methods, comprising improvements in sensitivity, robustness, versatility, disposability and reliability.     

Current air quality analytics and monitoring: A review

This review summarizes the different tools and concepts that are commonly applied in air quality monitoring. The monitoring of atmosphere is extremely important as the air quality is an important problem for large communities. Main requirements for analytical devices used for monitoring include a long period of autonomic operation and portability. These instruments, however, are often characterized by poor analytical performance. Monitoring networks are the most common tools used for monitoring, so large-scale monitoring programmes are summarized here. Biomonitoring, as a cheap and convenient alternative to traditional sample collection, is becoming more and more popular, although its main drawback is the lack of standard procedures. Telemonitoring is another approach to air monitoring, which offers some interesting opportunities, such as ease of coverage of large or remote areas, constituting a complementary approach to traditional strategies; however, it requires huge costs.