Evaluation of thermodynamic consistency of isobaric and isothermal binary vapor–liquid equilibrium data using the PAI test II,alcohol + n-alkane, +aromatic, +cycloalkane systems

The thermodynamic consistency of binary vapor–liquid equilibrium data has been examined for 46 binary alcohol + hydrocarbon systems with 310 data sets in total (145 isobaric and 165 isothermal sets) using the PAI test proposed in our previous study. The PAI test permits an overall check of the data by combining three tests: a point test, an area test, and an infinite dilution test. In this work, the PAI test was incorporated with the NRTL equation for fitting data. The results of the PAI test for the vapor–liquid equilibrium data showed that the PAI test was able to strictly select reliable data.     

Dynamic Enumeration of All Mixed Cells

The polyhedral homotopy method, which has been known as a powerful numerical method for computing all isolated zeros of a polynomial system, requires all mixed cells of the support of the system to construct a family of homotopy functions. The mixed cells are reformulated in terms of a linear inequality system with an additional combinatorial condition. An enumeration tree is constructed among a family of linear inequality systems induced from it such that every mixed cell corresponds to a unique feasible leaf node, and the depth-first search is applied to the enumeration tree for finding all the feasible leaf nodes. How to construct such an enumeration tree is crucial in computational efficiency. This paper proposes a dynamic construction of an enumeration tree, which branches each parent node into its child nodes so that the number of feasible child nodes is expected to be small; hence we can prune many subtrees which do not contain any mixed cell. Numerical results exhibit that the proposed dynamic construction of an enumeration tree works very efficiently for large scale polynomial systems; for example, it generated all mixed cells of the cyclic-15 problem for the first time in less than 16 hours.     

Preconcentration of atrazine and simazine with multiwalled carbon nanotubes as solid-phase extraction disk

A sensitive and selective preconcentration method using solid-phase extraction (SPE) disk, namely multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) disk, is proposed for the determination of atrazine and simazine in water samples. Atrazine and simazine were extracted on MWCNTs disk and then determined by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Several parameters on the enrichment factor of the analytes were investigated. The experimental results showed that it was possible to obtain quantitative analysis when the solution pH was 5 using 200 mL of validation solution containing 0.1 μg of triazines and 5 mL of acetone as an eluent. The maximum enrichment factors for atrazine and simazine were 3900 ± 250 and 4000 ± 110, respectively when 200 mL of sample solution volume was used. Relative standard deviations for seven determinations were 6.9% (atrazine) and 3.0% (simazine) under optimum conditions. The linear range of calibration curves were 0.1 to 1 ng mL^{− 1} for each analyte with good correlation coefficients. The detection limits (3S/N) were 2.5 and 5.0 pg mL^{− 1} for atrazine and simazine, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of atrazine and simazine in environmental water samples with high precision and accuracy.     

Mesogenic and magnetic behavior in cobalt(II) and iron(II) compounds with long alkyl chains

Abstract  

Metal complexes with long alkyl chains [Co(C16-terpy)₃](BF₄)₂ (1), [Fe(C16-terpy)₂](BF₄)₂ (2), [Co(C16-terpy)₂](BPh₄)₂ (3), [Co(C14-terpy)₂](BF₄)₂ (4), and [Fe(C12C10C5-terpy)₂](BF₄)₂ (5) were synthesized and their physical properties characterized, where C16-terpy, C14-terpy, and C12C10C5-terpy are 4′-hexadecyloxy-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine, 4′-tetradecyloxy-2,2′:6′,2′′-terpyridine, and 4′-5′′′-decyl-1′′′-heptadecyloxy-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine, respectively. Complexes 1, 2, and 5 exhibited liquid–crystal properties in the temperature ranges of 371–528 K and 466–556 K, and 88–523 K, respectively. Variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements revealed that the Co(II) complexes 1 and 4 exhibited unique spin transitions (T _1/2↓ = 217 K and T _1/2↑ = 260 K for 1 and T _1/2↓ = 250 K and T _1/2↑ = 307 K for 4), so-called ‘reverse spin transition,’ induced by structural phase transitions. Complex 3 exhibited gradual spin-crossover behavior (T _1/2 = 160 K.), and complex 5 exhibited spin transitions (T _1/2↑ = 288 K and T _1/2↓ = 284 K) at the liquid crystal transition temperature. Compounds with multifunction, i.e., magnetic and liquid–crystal properties, are important in the development of molecular materials.     

Synthesis and characterization of Co(II) and Cu(II) supported complexes of 2-pyrazinecarboxylic acid for cyclohexene oxidation

The complexes [Co(N^O)₂] (1) and [Cu(N^O)₂] (2) {N^O = η²-(N,O) coordinated 2-pyrazinecarboxylic acid} have been synthesized and characterized by elemental (including metal) analyses, FT-IR spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction. The molecular structure of complex 2 was determined by single X-ray crystallography. In the molecule, the Cu atom occupies the center of a square planar geometry, which consists of two trans-O atoms and two trans-N atoms of two 2-pyrazinecarboxylic acid ligands. The complexes 1 and 2 were well encapsulated into zeolite–Y super-cage to yield the corresponding zeolite–Y encapsulated metal complexes, abbreviated herein as [Co(N^O)₂]–Y (3) and [Cu(N^O)₂]–Y (4). Similarly, the metal complexes 1 and 2 were immobilized on alumina and organically modified silica surfaces to lead to the formation of immobilized metal complexes [Co(N^O)₂]–Al₂O₃ (5); [Cu(N^O)₂]–Al₂O₃ (6); [Co(N^O)₂]–AMPS (7) and [Cu(N^O)₂]–AMPS (8) (AMPS = aminopropyl silica). Elemental (including metal) analyses, FT-IR spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis have been used to characterize these materials. The catalytic activity of all the catalysts 1–8 towards the oxidation of cyclohexene into different chemically and pharmaceutically important products were evaluated under homogeneous and heterogeneous conditions. In order to obtain a maximum conversion of cyclohexene, the reaction parameters, like reaction temperature and time, were optimized. Under the optimized conditions, a maximum of 90.47% cyclohexene conversion was achieved with [Cu(N^O)₂]–Y (4) with a 1:2 molar ratio reaction of cyclohexene and H₂O₂.     

Crystal structures of (azido)(pentamethylcyclopentadienyl)iridium(III) complexes containing various types of bidentate ligands

Several (azido)iridium(III) complexes having a pentamethylcyclopentadienyl (Cp∗) group, [Cp∗Ir(N₃)₂(Ph₂Ppy-κP)] (1: Ph₂Ppy = 2-diphenylphosphinopyridine), [Cp∗Ir(N₃)(Ph₂Ppy-κP,κN)]CF₃SO₃ (2), [Cp∗Ir(N₃)(dmpm)]PF₆ (3: dmpm = bis(dimethylphosphino)methane), [Cp∗Ir(N₃)(Ph₂Pqn)]PF₆·$·$CH₃OH (4·$·$CH₃OH: Ph₂Pqn = 8-diphenylphosphinoquinoline), and [Cp∗Ir(N₃)(pybim)] (5: Hpybim = 2-(2-pyridyl)benzimidazole) have been prepared and their crystal structures have been analyzed by X-ray diffraction. In complex 1, the Ph₂Ppy ligand is only coordinated via the P atom (-κP), while in 2 it acts as a bidentate ligand through the P and N atoms (-κP,κN) to form a four-membered chelate ring. Comparing the structural parameters of the chelate ring in 2 with those of a similar five-membered chelate ring formed by Ph₂Pqn in 4, it became apparent that the angular distortion in the Ph₂Ppy-κP,κN ring was remarkable, although the Ir–P and Ir–N bonds in the Ph₂Ppy-κP,κN ring were not elongated very much from the corresponding bonds in the Ph₂Pqn-κP,κN ring. In the pybim complex 5, the five-membered chelate ring was coplanar with the pyridine and benzimidazolyl rings. With the related (azido)iridium(III) complexes analyzed previously, comparison of the structural parameters of the Ir–N₃ moiety in [Cp∗Ir^III(N₃)(L–L′)]^+/0 complexes reveals an anomalous feature of the 2,2′-bipyridyl (bpy) complex, [Cp∗Ir(N₃)(bpy)]PF₆.