Mesoscopic Modeling of Capillarity-Induced Two-Phase Transport in a Microfluidic Porous Structure

Mesoscopic modeling at the pore scale offers great promise in exploring the underlying structure transport performance of flow through porous media. The present work studies the fluid flow subjected to capillarity-induced resonance in porous media characterized by different porous structure and wettability. The effects of porosity and wettability on the displacement behavior of the fluid flow through porous media are discussed. The results are presented in the form of temporal evolution of percentage saturation and displacement of the fluid front through porous media. The present study reveals that the vibration in the form of acoustic excitation could be significant in the mobilization of fluid through the porous media. The dependence of displacement of the fluid on physicochemical parameters like wettability of the surface, frequency along with the porosity is analyzed. It was observed that the mean displacement of the fluid is more in the case of invading fluid with wetting phase where the driving force strength is not so dominant.     

Catalyst-Free Arylation of Tertiary Phosphines with Diaryliodonium Salts Enabled by Visible Light

The visible-light-induced arylation of tertiary phosphines with aryl(mesityl)iodonium triflates to produce the quaternary phosphonium salts occurs under mild, metal, and catalyst-free conditions. Photo-excited EDA complexes between diaryliodonium salts and phosphines supposedly enable this transformation, which is difficult to achieve through the traditional ground-state reactions. Demonstrating high functional group tolerance, broad scope, and complete selectivity of the aryl group transfer, the method is particularly compatible with sterically congested phosphines, which are challenging under metal-based catalytic methods.     

Modeling of the glycine tripeptide cyclization in the Ser65Gly/Tyr66Gly mutant of green fluorescent protein

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Phosphorylation of pyridoxal azomethines. Synthesis of phosphorus containing azomethines and furopyridines

New O-phosphorylated pyridoxal derivatives have been synthesized through the reaction of azomethines with Р^V acid chlorides. 2-Chloro-2-thioxo-5,5-dimethyl-1,3,2-dioxaphosphinanes and diethylchlorothiophosphate have been employed as phosphorylating agents. Regardless of the nature of the phosphorylating agent, the reaction is regioselective at phenolic hydroxyl group. The structure of final products is determined by the nature of the substituent at the nitrogen atom. If R is alkyl or cycloalkyl group, the products of the reaction represent phosphorylated pyridoxal imines, whereas phosphorylated furopyridines are formed in the case R is aryl substituent.     

Fluorescent core-shell polymer particles containing luminophore dyes: synthesis and optical response to acetone

Monodisperse dye-containing crosslinked particles are promising for application in novel optical chemical sensors due to their intrinsic sensitivity. However, preparation of these particles in aqueous media still remains a challenge, since luminophores inhibit radical processes or else cannot embed into polymer chains because of difference in monomer reactivity ratios. In this work, novel dye-containing monodisperse crosslinked particles were prepared and characterized. In order to obtain dye-containing monodisperse crosslinked particles, we studied seed copolymerization of styrene in the presence of divinylbenzene. The influence of nature and concentration of the used comonomers and co-solvents on shape, size distributions and surface characteristics of the particles formed was investigated. Shapes and diameters of the particles were analyzed by DLS, TEM and SEM. The data of SEM and optical spectroscopy studies demonstrated that the synthesized particles were able to self-assemble into thin-film three-dimensional ordered structures. Finally, the structures under study are promising for development of sensor devices with optical response to acetone.     

On a borderline between the NP-hard and polynomial-time solvable cases of the flow shop with job-dependent storage requirements

The paper is concerned with the two-machine flow shop, where each job requires an additional resource (referred to as storage space) from the start of its first operation till the end of its second operation. The storage requirement of a job is determined by the processing time of its first operation. At any point in time, the total consumption of this additional resource cannot exceed a given limit (referred to as the storage capacity). The goal is to minimise the makespan, i.e. to minimise the time needed for the completion of all jobs. This problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. The paper analyses how the parameter - a lower bound on the storage capacity specified in terms of the processing times, affects the computational complexity.

     

Role of compositional changes on thermal,magnetic,and mechanical properties of Fe-P-C-based amorphous alloys

This work aimed to tune the comprehensive properties of Fe-P-C-based amorphous system through investigating the role of microalloying process on the crystallization behavior,glass forming ability(GFA),soft magnetic features,and mechanical properties.Considering minor addition of elements into the system,it was found that the simultaneous microalloying of Ni and Co leads to the highest GFA,which was due to the optimization of compositional heterogeneity and creation of near-eutectic composition.Moreover,the FeCoNiCuPC amorphous alloy exhibited the best anelastic/viscoplastic behavior under the nanoindentation test,which was owing to the intensified structural fluctuations in the system.However,the improved plasticity by the extra Cu addition comes at the expense of magnetic properties,so that the saturation magnetization of this alloying system is significantly decreased compared to the FeCoPC amorphous alloy with the highest soft magnetic properties.In total,the results indicated that a combination of added elemental constitutes,i.e.,Fe69Co5Ni5Cu1P13C7 composition,provides an optimized state for the comprehensive properties in the alloying system.     

Peculiar Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Porphyrin–Fullerene Akamptisomers

Porphyrin–fullerene dyads are promising candidates for organic photovoltaic devices. The electron-transfer (ET) properties of the molecular devices depend significantly on the mutual position of the donor and acceptor. Recently, a new type of molecular isomerism (akamptisomerism) has been discovered. In the present study, we explore how photoinduced ET can be modulated by passing from one akamptisomer to another. To this aim, four akamptisomers of the quinoxalinoporphyrin–[60]fullerene complex are selected for computational study. The most striking finding is that, depending on the isomer, the porphyrin unit in the dyad can act as either electron donor or electron acceptor. Thus, the stereoisomeric diversity allows one to change the direction of ET between the porphyrin and fullerene moieties. To understand the effect of akamptisomerism on the photoinduced ET processes, a detailed analysis of initial and final states involved in the ET is performed. The computed rate for charge separation is estimated to be in the region of 1–10 ns⁻¹. The formation of a long-living quinoxalinoporphyrin anion radical species is predicted.     

Infrared spectroscopy of closed s-shell gas-phase M+(N2O)n (M = Li,Al) ion-molecule complexes*

ABSTRACT

We present the results of a combined experimental and computational study of the structures of gas-phase M⁺(N₂O)_n (M?=?Li, Al) complexes. Infrared spectra were recorded in the region of the N₂O asymmetric (N?=?N) stretch using photodissociation spectroscopy employing the inert messenger technique. Unlike in our previous studies on M⁺(N₂O)_n (M?=?Cu, Ag, Au and M?=?Co, Rh, Ir) complexes, N– and O–bound isomers in this case are near isoenergetic and are not distinguished spectroscopically at this resolution. In the case of Li⁺ complexes, there is, however, evidence for the presence of bound N₂ moieties, indicating the presence of inserted, OLi⁺N₂(N₂O)_n–type structures. The weak N₂ band lies to the blue of the signature of molecularly N– and O–bound ligands and is well–reproduced in the simulated spectra of energetically low-lying structures computed from density functional theory. No such inserted isomers are observed in the case of Al⁺(N₂O)_n complexes whose infrared spectra can be understood on the basis of molecularly-bound N₂O ligands. The differences in M⁺(N₂O)_n structures observed for these closed–shell, ns², metal centres relative to other metal cations are discussed in terms of the likely bonding motifs.     

Inorganic Molecular Electride Mg4O3: Structure,Bonding, and Nonlinear Optical Properties

Growing demands of material science and, in particular, in the field of nonlinear optics (NLO) encourage us to look for stable highly polarizable molecules with excess diffuse electrons. An unusual class of compounds called electrides comply with these requirements. Many attempts have been made, yet only few electrides have been synthesized as solids and none of them as molecular species. In this paper, a new theoretically designed molecular species with electride characteristics is reported. The idea of this molecular electride comes from the formation of electride-like features in the MgO crystal with defect F-centers. The geometry of the investigated molecule can be described as a Mg₄O₄ cube with one oxygen atom removed. In Mg₄O₃, two 3s electrons are pushed out from the inner area of the molecule forming a diffuse electride multicentered bond. Our calculations show that this electride-like cluster possesses a noticeably large first hyperpolarizability β=5733 au. At the same time, a complete cube Mg₄O₄ and Mg₄O₃²⁺ without electride electron pair have much smaller β: 0 au and 741 au, respectively. This fact indicates the decisive role of the electride electron pair in NLO properties. Additionally, vertical detachment energies of isomers (VDE), excitation energies ΔE, polarizabilities α, and IR spectra were calculated. These properties, including β, are supposed to be observable experimentally and can serve as indirect evidence of the stable molecular electride formation.