α‐Diamine Nickel Catalysts with Nonplanar Chelate Rings for Ethylene Polymerization

A series of novel α‐diamine nickel complexes, (ArNH‐C(Me)‐(Me)C‐NHAr)NiBr₂, 1 : Ar=2,6‐diisopropylphenyl, 2 : Ar=2,6‐dimethylphenyl, 3 : Ar=phenyl), have been synthesized and characterized. X‐ray crystallographic analysis showed that the coordination geometry of the α‐diamine nickel complexes is markedly different from conventional α‐diimine nickel complexes, and that the chelate ring (N‐C‐C‐N‐Ni) of the α‐diamine nickel complex is significantly distorted. The α‐diamine nickel catalysts also display different steric effects on ethylene polymerization in comparison to the α‐diimine nickel catalyst. Increasing the steric hindrance of the α‐diamine ligand by substitution of the o‐methyl groups with o‐isopropyl groups leads to decreased polymerization activity and molecular weight; however, catalyst thermal stability is significantly enhanced. Living polymerizations of ethylene can be successfully achieved using 1 /Et₂AlCl at 35 °C or 2 /Et₂AlCl at 0 °C. The bulky α‐diamine nickel catalyst 1 with isopropyl substituents can additionally be used to control the branching topology of the obtained polyethylene at the same level of branching density by tuning the reaction temperature and ethylene pressure.     

Preparation and solution properties of a novel cationic hydrophobically modified polyacrylamide for enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

A novel cationic water-soluble monomer allyldimethylisooctylammonium bromide (ADIAB) containing a short-chain alkane was synthesized successfully. This monomer was copolymerized with acrylamide and sodium acrylate to produce hydrophobically modified polyacrylamide (HMPAM) using solution polymerization without surfactants. The structures of monomer ADIAB and HMPAM were characterized with infrared spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Influence of preparation condition on viscosities of products was studied. The aqueous solution viscosity of the terpolymer was also investigated as functions of concentration, temperature and salinity. The results showed that when the temperature exceeds the 60?°C and NaCl concentration exceeds about 2000?mg/L, the temperature and salt tolerance characters of terpolymer were demonstrated. The enhanced oil recovery tests were initially carried out using homogeneous sandpack models.     

Polypeptide/Doxorubicin Hydrochloride Polymersomes Prepared Through Organic Solvent‐free Technique as a Smart Drug Delivery Platform

Rapid and efficient side‐chain functionalization of polypeptide with neighboring carboxylgroups is achieved via the combination of ring‐opening polymerization and subsequent thiol‐yne click chemistry. The spontaneous formation of polymersomes with uniform size is found to occur in aqueous medium via electrostatic interaction between the anionic polypeptide and cationic doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX·HCl). The polymersomes are taken up by A549 cells via endocytosis, with a slightly lower cytotoxicity compared with free DOX ·HCl. Moreover, the drug‐loaded polymersomes exhibit the enhanced therapeutic efficacy, increase apoptosis in tumor tissues, and reduce systemic toxicity in nude mice bearing A549 lung cancer xenograft, in comparison with free DOX ·HCl.     

Rheological Study of Interactions between Anionic Guar and Oppositely Charged Surfactant

We have studied the interactions between anionic carboxymethyl guar (CMG) and oppositely charged surfactant: dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB), tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TTAB), cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and gemini surfactants (16-4-16), using rheological measurements. In the present study, two competing forces, electrostatic interaction and hydrophobic interaction, have been identified as important factors. Various types of structure formed on the anionic CMG chains are qualitatively discussed in comparison. For example, C₁₂TAB and gemini surfactant tend to form polymer-bound aggregates, whereas the C₁₆TAB tend to form the polymer-associated architecture. Furthermore, possible mechanisms based on the experimental results to elucidate these interesting phenomena have been proposed and discussed.     

基于金属有机框架水凝胶的一步式快速富集检测养殖水体中孔雀石绿北大核心CSCD

孔雀石绿是一种三苯甲烷类化合物,在水产品饲养中对疾病的防治有着不错的疗效,但因对人体健康有危害而被列为禁用药。由于实际样品中成分复杂,对于此类染料的检测方法难以同时兼具富集性好、灵敏度高且方便快速的优点。该工作制备了金属有机框架材料(MOF),采用MOF纳米材料掺杂的水凝胶(PAAM-SA/MOF)对养殖水体中的孔雀石绿进行吸附研究。采用一系列表征手段对MOF、PAAM-SA和PAAM-SA/MOF的微观形貌进行分析,结果表明吸附材料已成功合成。通过优化水凝胶吸附剂用量、吸附时间、孔雀石绿溶液pH、吸附温度、孔雀石绿溶液初始浓度等吸附萃取条件,使溶液中的孔雀石绿基本完全吸附在水凝胶中,在最优条件下,吸附效率最高可达97%。此外,采用不同极性的有机溶剂对吸附的孔雀石绿进行洗脱,通过优化洗脱液体积,脱附率最高达99%。在最佳条件下,该方法在高、中、低3个水平下的样品加标回收试验中回收率达到84.8%~118.1%,相对标准偏差小于5.1%,方法的检出限为0.083μg/L(S/N=3),定量限为0.25μg/L(S/N=10)。该方法简化了前处理过程,结合了MOF和水凝胶这二者各自的优点,添加的MOF材料可以在水凝胶体系中发挥其良好的吸附性,既解决了传统的MOF材料因粒径太小而回收率低的难题,便于吸附后直接提取,同时也解决了纯水凝胶吸附效率较低的问题,整体上提高了吸附效率和可回收性。实际样品测试表明该新型水凝胶吸附材料可用于养殖水体中孔雀石绿的快速萃取和检测,在食品检测领域具有很大潜力。     

A sensitive and selective HPLC–MS3 method for therapeutic drug monitoring of meropenem and its validation by comparison with HPLC–MS2 methods

Meropenem, a representative β-lactam antibiotic, is widely used to treat complicated and serious infections. Therefore, it is of great significance to monitor the plasma drug concentration for individualized antimicrobial therapy. This study first describes the development and validation of high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry cubed method for monitoring meropenem in human plasma. Protein precipitation with methanol and a chromatographic analysis time of 7 min make this method simple and of high throughput. Meropenem was extracted from human plasma with recoveries >94.1%. Calibration curves were linear (R² > 0.995) in the concentration range of 0.5–50 μg/mL. Overall accuracy and precision did not exceed 8.0% as well as no significant matrix effect was observed. The novelty of this method is that the triple-stage mass spectrometry technology improves the selectivity and sensitivity. A comparison of the presented method and traditional liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method was assessed in 44 patients treated with meropenem and Passing–Bablok regression coefficients and Bland–Altman plots showed that no significant difference between the two methods. So the triple-stage mass spectrometry method developed in this study is appropriate and practical for the monitor of meropenem in the daily clinical laboratory practice.     

CompassR Yields Highly Organic-Solvent-Tolerant Enzymes through Recombination of Compatible Substitutions

The CompassR (computer-assisted recombination) rule enables, among beneficial substitutions, the identification of those that can be recombined in directed evolution. Herein, a recombination strategy is systematically investigated to minimize experimental efforts and maximize possible improvements. In total, 15 beneficial substitutions from Bacillus subtilis lipase A (BSLA), which improves resistance to the organic cosolvent 1,4-dioxane (DOX), were studied to compare two recombination strategies, the two-gene recombination process (2GenReP) and the in silico guided recombination process (InSiReP), employing CompassR. Remarkably, both strategies yielded a highly DOX-resistant variant, M4 (I12R/Y49R/E65H/N98R/K122E/L124K), with up to 14.6-fold improvement after screening of about 270 clones. M4 has a remarkably enhanced resistance in 60 % (v/v) acetone (6.0-fold), 30 % (v/v) ethanol (2.1-fold), and 60 % (v/v) methanol (2.4-fold) compared with wild-type BSLA. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed that attracting water molecules by charged surface substitutions is the main driver for increasing the DOX resistance of BSLA M4. Both strategies and obtained molecular knowledge can likely be used to improve the properties of other enzymes with a similar α/β-hydrolase fold.     

Structure‐Based Rational Design of Prodrugs To Enable Their Combination with Polymeric Nanoparticle Delivery Platforms for Enhanced Antitumor Efficacy

Drug‐loaded nanoparticles (NPs) are of particular interest for efficient cancer therapy due to their improved drug delivery and therapeutic index in various types of cancer. However, the encapsulation of many chemotherapeutics into delivery NPs is often hampered by their unfavorable physicochemical properties. Here, we employed a drug reform strategy to construct a small library of SN‐38 (7‐ethyl‐10‐hydroxycamptothecin)‐derived prodrugs, in which the phenolate group was modified with a variety of hydrophobic moieties. This esterification fine‐tuned the polarity of the SN‐38 molecule and enhanced the lipophilicity of the formed prodrugs, thereby inducing their self‐assembly into biodegradable poly(ethylene glycol)‐block‐poly(d,l ‐lactic acid) (PEG‐PLA) nanoparticulate structures. Our strategy combining the rational engineering of prodrugs with the pre‐eminent features of conventionally used polymeric materials should open new avenues for designing more potent drug delivery systems as a therapeutic modality.     

Exploring the Limits of Transition-Metal Fluorination at High Pressures

Fluorination is a proven method for challenging the limits of chemistry, both structurally and electronically. Here we explore computationally how pressures below 300 GPa affect the fluorination of several transition metals. A plethora of new structural phases are predicted along with the possibility for synthesizing four unobserved compounds: TcF₇, CdF₃, OsF₈, and IrF₈. The Ir and Os octaflourides are both predicted to be stable as quasi-molecular phases with an unusual cubic ligand coordination, and both compounds formally correspond to a high oxidation state of +8. Electronic-structure analysis reveals that otherwise unoccupied 6p levels are brought down in energy by the combined effects of pressure and a strong ligand field. The valence expansion of Os and Ir enables ligand-to-metal F 2p→M 6p charge transfer that strengthens M−F bonds and decreases the overall bond polarity. The lower stability of IrF₈, and the instability of PtF₈ and several other compounds below 300 GPa, is explained by the occupation of M−F antibonding orbitals in octafluorides with a metal-valence-electron count exceeding 8.     

Rapid Capillary-Assisted Solution Printing of Perovskite Nanowire Arrays Enables Scalable Production of Photodetectors

Despite recent progress in producing perovskite nanowires (NWs) for optoelectronics, it remains challenging to solution-print an array of NWs with precisely controlled position and orientation. Herein, we report a robust capillary-assisted solution printing (CASP) strategy to rapidly access aligned and highly crystalline perovskite NW arrays. The key to the CASP approach lies in the integration of capillary-directed assembly through periodic nanochannels and solution printing through the programmably moving substrate to rapidly guide the deposition of perovskite NWs. The growth kinetics of perovskite NWs was closely examined by in situ optical microscopy. Intriguingly, the as-printed perovskite NWs array exhibit excellent optical and optoelectronic properties and can be conveniently implemented for the scalable fabrication of photodetectors.