Construction of a dimethyl sulfoxide sensor based on dimethyl sulfoxide reductase immobilized on a au film electrode.

A novel dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) sensor using DMSO reductase and film electrodes was constructed. The Au and Ag electrodes were fabricated on slide glass by vacuum deposition and the application of a photolithographic technique. The micro-chamber (4 x 50 x 1 mm, volume 200 microl) was fabricated on a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) polymer. The Pt electrode was implanted in a PDMS polymer. DMSO reductase was immobilized on a Au film electrode with bovine serum albumin (BSA)-glutaraldehyde. This sensor could determine DMSO in an unpurged aqueous solution with glucose oxidase (GOD) and catalase (CAT) for oxygen removal. The DMSO sensor showed a linear response within 1 mM DMSO with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. The detection limit was 200 microM (3sigma), and the sensitivity was 23.8 mA M(-1) cm(-2). The relative standard deviations at each concentration were within 3.6%.     

Study on interaction between Tb(III) and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)

A new kind of the thermo-sensitive and fluorescent complex of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) and Tb(III) was synthesized by free radical polymerization, in which PNIPAM was used as a polymer ligand. The complex was characterized by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet-visual (UV), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results from the experiments indicated that there is a strong interaction between PNIPAM and Tb(III), leading to a decrease in the electron density of nitrogen and oxygen atoms and an increase in the electron density of Tb(III) in the PNIPAM containing Tb(III) by contrast with PNIPAM and Tb(III), respectively, meanwhile, exhibiting that the Tb(III) is mainly bonded to oxygen atoms in the polymer chain of PNIPAM and formed the complex of PNIPAM-Tb(III). After forming the PNIPAM-Tb(III) complex, the emission fluorescence intensity of Tb(III) in the PNIPAM-Tb(III) complex is significantly enhanced because the effective intramolecular energy transfer from PNIPAM to Tb(III). Especially, the emission intensity of the fluorescence peak at 547 nm can be increased as high as 145 times comparing with that of the pure Tb(III). The intramolecular energy transfer efficiency for fluorescence peak at 547 nm can reach as high as 68%. The fluorescence intensity is related the weight ratio of Tb(III) and PNIPAM in the PNIPAM-Tb(III) complex. When the weight ratio is 1.4%, the maximum fluorescence enhancement can be obtained. Nevertheless, the lower critical solution temperature of PNIPAM containing a low content of Tb(III) has not obviously changed after the formation of the complex of PNIPAM-Tb(III) by the interaction between PNIPAM and Tb(III). This novel thermosensitive and fluorescence characterization of the PNIPAM-Tb(III) complex may be useful in the fluorescence systems and the biomedical field.     

Spectrophotometric determination of titanium with o-carboxyphenylfluorone in cationic micellar media, and its equilibrium and kinetic studies

Spectrophotometric determination of titanium(IV) was accomplished with o-carboxyphenylfluorone (OCPF) in the presence of hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium chloride (HTAC) under strongly acidic media. In the determination of titanium(IV), Beer's law was obeyed in the range of 24-340 ng mL⁻¹ with an effective molar absorption coefficient (at 530 nm) and relative standard deviation of 2.24 × 10⁵ dm³ mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹ and 0.64% (n = 8), respectively. The severe interference of iron ions was easily eliminated by the addition of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA); the effects of other foreign substances were low. Equilibrium and kinetic studies under analytical conditions were investigated to quantitatively evaluate the reaction mechanism. The obtained orange complex is considered to be Ti(OCPF)₄. Its stability log K_f and rate constant K_obs are 16.88 and 1.65 × 10⁻² s⁻¹, respectively. It is suggested that the color of the complex is related to the species of OCPF in the solution.     

A recyclable, self-supported organocatalyst based on a poly(N-heterocyclic carbene)

We report the synthesis and catalytic activity of a polymeric imidazolium salt. In contrast to the well-known resin-supported N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), the material described herein affords a polymer with NHCs orthogonally positioned along a main chain upon generation in situ. The unique structural characteristics of the corresponding poly(NHC)s enabled the materials to display catalytic activities that were similar or superior to those displayed by monomeric analogues. Moreover, the new catalyst was successfully recovered and reused with minimal loss of performance over several cycles.     

Copper-catalyzed direct sulfoximination of azoles and polyfluoroarenes under ambient conditions

The direct dehydrogenative C-N coupling of azoles or polyfluoroarenes with N-H sulfoximines proceeds effectively in the presence of a copper catalyst at room temperature under air to afford the corresponding N-arylsulfoximines in good to high yields.     

Weighted Sobolev L2 estimates for a class of Fourier integral operators

In this paper we develop elements of the global calculus of Fourier integral operators in ${{\mathbb R}^n}$ under minimal decay assumptions on phases and amplitudes. We also establish global weighted Sobolev L² estimates for a class of Fourier integral operators that appears in the analysis of global smoothing problems for dispersive partial differential equations. As an application, we exhibit a new type of weighted estimates for hyperbolic equations, where the decay of data in space is quantitatively translated into the time decay of solutions.     

Extraction and Separation Properties of Hydrophilic Compounds Using Novel Water-Holding Adsorbents Bonded with a Zwitter-Ionic Polymer

A novel water-holding adsorbent was synthesized by introducing a zwitter-ionic polymer to a hydrophilic methacrylate base resin. The retention abilities of the hydrophilic compounds on the adsorbents with and without cross-link in the zwitter-ionic functional groups were examined. The amount of held water on the non-cross-linked adsorbent was higher than that of the cross-linked one. The extraction efficiencies of the hydrophilic solutes on the adsorbents were evaluated by the solid phase extraction method. These adsorbents showed high affinity for nucleosides and glycosides, and good recoveries for such hydrophilic compounds in the solid-phase extraction were obtained. Furthermore, the retention properties of the hydrophilic solutes on the adsorbents were also evaluated by LC. The hydrophilic solutes were retained on these adsorbents by a partition mode based on a hydrophilic interaction. The retention factors of the hydrophilic solutes showed good correlation to their log P _o/w (logarithm of octanol?Cwater partition coefficient) and good separation based on hydrophilic interaction was obtained for nucleobases and nucleosides.     

Synthesis and study of redox-active acyclic triazenes: toward electrochromic applications

Coupling of various 4-substituted phenyl azides with two distinct quinone-containing N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) afforded the respective mono- and ditopic 1,3-disubstituted acyclic triazenes in moderate to excellent yields (38-92%). Depending on their pendant substituents (derived from the azides), the acyclic triazenes exhibited intense absorptions in the visible spectrum (359-428 nm), which were bathochromically shifted by up to Δλ=68 nm upon reduction of the quinone moiety on the component derived from the NHC. Cyclic voltammetry confirmed that the aforementioned redox processes were reversible, and a related set of UV-vis spectroelectrochemical experiments revealed that bulk electrolysis may also be used to switch reversibly the colors exhibited by these triazenes.     

Ultrafast excited state dynamics of fucoxanthin: excitation energy dependent intramolecular charge transfer dynamics

Carotenoids containing a carbonyl group in conjugation with their polyene backbone are naturally-occurring pigments in marine organisms and are essential to the photosynthetic light-harvesting function in aquatic algae. These carotenoids exhibit spectral characteristics attributed to an intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) state that arise in polar solvents due to the presence of the carbonyl group. Here, we report the spectroscopic properties of the carbonyl carotenoid fucoxanthin in polar (methanol) and nonpolar (cyclohexane) solvents studied by steady-state absorption and femtosecond pump-probe measurements. Transient absorption associated with the optically forbidden S(1) (2(1)A) state and/or the ICT state were observed following one-photon excitation to the optically allowed S(2) (1(1)B) state in methanol. The transient absorption measurements carried out in methanol showed that the ratio of the ICT-to-S(1) state formation increased with decreasing excitation energy. We also showed that the ICT character was clearly visible in the steady-state absorption in methanol based on a Franck-Condon analysis. The results suggest that two spectroscopic forms of fucoxanthin, blue and red, exist in the polar environment.