Structure Determination of [Au18(SR)14]

Unravelling the atomic structures of small gold clusters is the key to understanding the origin of metallic bonds and the nucleation of clusters from organometallic precursors. Herein we report the X‐ray crystal structure of a charge‐neutral [Au₁₈(SC₆H₁₁)₁₄] cluster. This structure exhibits an unprecedented bi‐octahedral (or hexagonal close packing) Au₉ kernel protected by staple‐like motifs including one tetramer, one dimer, and three monomers. Until the present, the [Au₁₈(SC₆H₁₁)₁₄] cluster is the smallest crystallographically characterized gold cluster protected by thiolates and provides important insight into the structural evolution with size. Theoretical calculations indicate charge transfer from surface to kernel for the HOMO–LUMO transition.     

Redox‐Mediated Synthesis of a Fe3O4–MnO2 Nanocomposite for Dye Adsorption and Pseudocapacitance

A logically chosen redox reaction of submerged Fe⁰ in an aqueous KMnO₄ solution has been reported. The template‐free reaction conditions produced gram amounts of a hierarchical flowerlike Fe₃O₄–MnO₂ nanocomposite. More precisely, freshly prepared Fe⁰ nanoparticles were prepared from air‐free hot water under submerged conditions using a door magnet. The black Fe⁰ particles were oxidized in water quantitatively by KMnO₄ in the solution phase and the nanocomposite was prepared. The material has been used as a dye adsorbent and the representative cationic dye uptake, recovery, and recycling of the dye becomes easy owing to the ferromagnetic properties and surface negative charge of the material. The nanocomposite also showed a higher specific capacitance (327 F g^?1 at 10 mV s^?1) than the reported values of pure MnO₂ and Fe₃O₄. The material exhibited a high energy density as well as a high power density, and remained stable even after a large number of charge–discharge cycles.     

Linear and Hyperbranched Poly(arylene ether)s from a New Semifluorinated AB Monomer

A new trifluoromethyl-activated AB monomer has been successfully synthesized by Pd-initiated coupling of 4-bromo anisole with 4-fluoro-3-trifluoromethylphenylboronic acid followed by demethylation. The monomer leads to a semifluorinated poly(arylene ether) by nucleophilic displacement polymerization reaction. The AB monomer has been further copolymerized with a corresponding AB ₂ monomer to form the corresponding semifluorinated hyperbranched (hb) poly(arylene ether). The resulting linear and hb poly(arylene ether)s exhibited weight average molecular weight of 75700 and 144100 g/mol, respectively. The hb copolymer exhibited better solubility in different organic solvents compared to the linear poly(arylene ether). The polymers showed excellent thermal stability up to 522°C at 10% wt loss in air and glass transition temperatures as high as 187°C. The mechanical properties of the linear poly(arylene ether) film 1a exhibited tensile strength at break of 89 MPa, elongation at break of up to 3% and a Young’s modulus value of 2.66 GPa. The films of the polymers were hydrophobic in nature and showed water contact angle as high as 93.6°.     

Role of Rare Earth Oxide Nanoparticles (CeO2 and La2O3) in Suppressing the Photobleaching of Fluorescent Organic Dyes

Aqueous solutions with Rhodamine dye, and fluorescently labeled polymer samples of fibrin and collagen were mixed with aqueous dispersions of cerium oxide, lanthanum oxide, iron (II) oxide nanoparticles, and OxyFluor, a commonly used reagent for suppressing photobleaching. From time dependent studies of the fluorescence from these samples, we observed that the dyes in samples containing rare earth oxide nanoparticles exhibited significantly slower rates of fluorescence decay compared to control samples without additives, or containing OxyFluor or iron oxide nanoparticles. We posit that this may be related to the oxygen free radical scavenging properties of rare earth oxides.     

Exciplex parameters: key factors in the dielectric behaviour of magnetodynamics

Photoinduced electron transfer reactions in solution produce two primary geminate radical ion pairs: contact ion pair or exciplex and solvent-separated ion pair. The magnetodynamics of radical ion pairs involves suppression of the spin-evolution between singlet and triplet states of a fraction of solvent-separated ion pairs, the partners of which undergo prior diffusion to attain the distance where exchange interaction is negligible, in the presence of an external low magnetic field of the order of the hyperfine interactions present in the system. This results in an increase in geminate recombination of the singlet solvent-separated ion pairs and enhancement in exciplex luminescence since the precursor radical ion pair is singlet. Although seemingly magnetodynamics is a diffusion-controlled phenomenon that should depend mainly on the dielectric constant of the medium (keeping viscosity almost constant), it is not true for all the exciplex systems since the nature of the magnetic field effect versus medium dielectric curves differ from each other in peak positions, peak heights and onset points. To investigate this differential nature, magnetic field effects among exciplex systems consisting of different derivatives of carbazole as electron donors are compared with a universal acceptor, 1,4-dicyano-benzene, with the pyrene—N,N-dimethylaniline exciplex system as reference. It was found that, apart from the solvent dielectric, the exciplex energy and the bulk effect of the steric constraints present on either donor or acceptor site, regulating the optimum inter-radical distance in the initially formed radical ion pair, are the key factors in controlling the magnetodynamic behaviour.     

An efficient and reusable vanadium based catalytic system for room temperature oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones

A simple and efficient vanadium based catalyst system for the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols to aldehydes or ketones is reported using tert-butyl hydroperoxide as oxidizing agent and vanadyl sulfate as catalyst at room temperature. The versatility of the catalytic protocol is studied with wide variety of substrates.     

Thin films of Pd and Pd–1% MWCNT as new electrocatalysts for oxidation of phenol in acid medium

Thin films of pure Pd and composite of Pd and 1% multiwalled carbon nanotube have been obtained on glassy carbon electrodes by borohydride reduction method and investigated as electrocatalysts for the oxidation of phenol in acid medium at 25 °C, using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronopotentiometry, and high-performance liquid chromatography. The CV study showed that both the electrocatalysts are quite stable and active for the phenol oxidation in acid medium. Further, these electrodes do not seem to undergo deactivation due to intermediates and products formed during the phenol oxidation. With the increase in phenol concentration from 2 to 25 mM, the peak current (I _p) increases initially, reaches maximum at about 15 mM, and tends to decrease thereafter. The peak potential (E _p) value was found to be practically unchanged with phenol concentration. The rate for phenol oxidation (I _p) at the surface of both the electrocatalysts increased with the decrease in pH of the reaction mixture. The electrocatalytic activity of the composite electrode was, however, higher than that of pure Pd under similar experimental conditions. Benzoquinone and hydroquinone were identified as the major phenol degradation intermediate products.     

A mild and efficient protocol for oxidation of thiols to disulfides in water

A novel vanadium polyoxometalate [(C₇H₇)(CH₃)₃N]₃[H₃V₁₀O₂₈].3H₂O works as a useful oxidant for the oxidation of thiols to disulfldes in water under mild reaction conditions in an excellent yield. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 23:231–234, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com . DOI 10.1002/hc.20760     

From graphs to free products

We investigate a construction (from Kodiyalam Vijay and Sunder V?S, J.?Funct. Anal. 260 (2011) 2635?C2673) which associates a finite von Neumann algebra M(??,??) to a finite weighted graph (??,??). Pleasantly, but not surprisingly, the von Neumann algebra associated to a ??flower with n petals?? is the group on Neumann algebra of the free group on n generators. In general, the algebra M(??,??) is a free product, with amalgamation over a finite-dimensional abelian subalgebra corresponding to the vertex set, of algebras associated to subgraphs ??with one edge?? (or actually a pair of dual edges). This also yields ??natural?? examples of (i) a Fock-type model of an operator with a free Poisson distribution; and (ii) ${\mathbb C} \oplus {\mathbb C}$ -valued circular and semi-circular operators.