Synthesis of Fe—Ni—Ce trimetallic catalyst nanoparticles via impregnation and co-precipitation and their application to dye degradation

In this study, trimetallic catalysts were prepared via the co-precipitation and impregnation methods. In order to investigate the effect of impregnation on the catalytic activity and crystallite size, a trimetallic catalyst, Fe—Ni—Ce, was prepared through the co-precipitation method in one set of experiments, and cerium was impregnated with the Ni—Fe mixture in the final stage of the preparation in another set. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was employed to confirm the formation of trimetallic catalysts and the success of the impregnation method. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller nitrogen adsorption isotherm exhibits a high specific surface area (approximately 39 m² g^?1) for the nanoparticles obtained by the impregnation method. The crystallography and morphology of the trimetallic catalysts thus prepared were characterised by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. UV-VIS spectroscopy and methylene blue dye degradation tests were also performed to investigate the catalytic activity of the synthesised catalysts. The crystalline size was found to be smaller for the catalysts prepared by the impregnation method. In addition, the samples synthesised using the cerium impregnation method showed superior activity in the methylene blue dye degradation test. The effect of the catalyst dosage on dye degradation, as well as the effect of the initial dye concentration on the catalyst activity, was also studied for both methods.     

Estimation of Activation Energy from the Survival Yields: Fragmentation Study of Leucine Enkephalin and Polyethers by Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A simple collision model for multiple collisions occurring in quadrupole type mass spectrometers was derived and tested with leucine enkaphalin a common mass spectrometric standard with well-characterized properties. Implementation of the collision model and Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM) algorithm into a spreadsheet software allowed a good fitting of the calculated data to the experimental survival yield (SY) versus collision energy curve. In addition, fitting also ensured to estimate the efficiencies of the kinetic to internal energy conversion for Leucine enkephalin in quadrupole-time-of-flight and triple quadrupole instruments. It was observed that the experimental SY versus collision energy curves for the leucine enkephalin can be described by the Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel (RRK) formalism by reducing the total degrees of freedom (DOF) to about one-fifth. Furthermore, this collision model with the RRK formalism was used to estimate the critical energy (E _o ) of lithiated polyethers, including polyethylene glycol (PEG), polypropylene glycol (PPG), and polytetrahydrofurane (PTHF) with degrees of freedom similar to that of leucine enkephalin. Applying polyethers with similar DOF provided the elimination of the effect of DOF on the unimolecular reaction rate constant. The estimated value of E _o for PEG showed a relatively good agreement with the value calculated by high-level quantum chemical calculations reported in the literature. Interestingly, it was also found that the E _o values for the studied polyethers were similar.

P-Dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid(DBSA),a Brфnsted acid-surfactant catalyst for Biginelli reaction in water and under solvent free conditions

We report herein the use of p-dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid(DBSA) as a catalyst for a one-pot Biginelli reaction to afford 3,4- dihydropyrimidinone derivatives in good to excellent yields.This reaction proceeds efficiently in water and under solvent free conditions.Comparisons of results indicate that although the yields are high and comparable for both methods,the reaction times are considerably shorter under solvent free conditions.     

Sequence‐based prediction of protein–peptide binding sites using support vector machine

Protein–peptide interactions are essential for all cellular processes including DNA repair, replication, gene‐expression, and metabolism. As most protein – peptide interactions are uncharacterized, it is cost effective to investigate them computationally as the first step. All existing approaches for predicting protein – peptide binding sites, however, are based on protein structures despite the fact that the structures for most proteins are not yet solved. This article proposes the first machine‐learning method called SPRINT to make Sequence‐based prediction of Protein – peptide Residue‐level Interactions. SPRINT yields a robust and consistent performance for 10‐fold cross validations and independent test. The most important feature is evolution‐generated sequence profiles. For the test set (1056 binding and non‐binding residues), it yields a Matthews’ Correlation Coefficient of 0.326 with a sensitivity of 64% and a specificity of 68%. This sequence‐based technique shows comparable or more accurate than structure‐based methods for peptide‐binding site prediction. SPRINT is available as an online server at: http://sparks-lab.org/ . © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Flavin Derivatives with Tailored Redox Properties: Synthesis,Characterization, and Electrochemical Behavior

This study establishes structure–property relationships for four synthetic flavin molecules as bioinspired redox mediators in electro‐ and photocatalysis applications. The studied flavin compounds were disubstituted with polar substituents at the N1 and N3 positions (alloxazine) or at the N3 and N10 positions (isoalloxazines). The electrochemical behavior of one such synthetic flavin analogue was examined in detail in aqueous solutions of varying pH in the range from 1 to 10. Cyclic voltammetry, used in conjunction with hydrodynamic (rotating disk electrode) voltammetry, showed quasi‐reversible behavior consistent with freely diffusing molecules and an overall global 2e^?, 2H⁺ proton‐coupled electron transfer scheme. UV/Vis spectroelectrochemical data was also employed to study the pH‐dependent electrochemical behavior of this derivative. Substituent effects on the redox behavior were compared and contrasted for all the four compounds, and visualized within a scatter plot framework to afford comparison with prior knowledge on mostly natural flavins in aqueous media. Finally, a preliminary assessment of one of the synthetic flavins was performed of its electrocatalytic activity toward dioxygen reduction as a prelude to further (quantitative) studies of both freely diffusing and tethered molecules on various electrode surfaces.     

The effects of cerium doping concentration on the properties and photocatalytic activity of bimetallic Mo/Ce catalyst

In this study, the characterization and photocatalytic activity of MoO₃ nanoparticles doped with various doping concentrations of cerium have been investigated. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra of the prepared catalysts confirmed that MoO₃ particles have been successfully doped by cerium. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was performed to visualize the surface morphology of the obtained catalysts. The XRD patterns suggested that the crystallinity of the sample with the lowest doping concentration of 15 mol % was higher in comparison with samples of higher doping concentrations. The volume-averaged crystal sizes of the obtained catalysts were calculated to be 25, 28, and 32 nm for 15, 35, and 60 mol % samples, respectively. The photocatalytic activity along with the reaction kinetics of Ce-doped MoO₃ nanoparticles have also been investigated through the dye degradation of methyl orange. The synthesized Ce-doped MoO₃ particles with the lowest dopant concentration of 15 mol % exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity for methyl orange dye degradation. It was observed that photo-degradation activity decreased with an increase in the doping concentration of cerium. The predicted rate constants for samples with 15, 35, and 60 mol % doping concentrations were found to be 0.0432, 0.035, and 0.029 min^–1, respectively.     

Parametric study of plasma active medium and gain saturation region in a Ne-like soft X-ray laser

Plasmas created by the interaction of high power optical laser with a target surface can be used as a source of soft X-ray lasers. Plasma and pump laser characteristics play significant role in achieving high gain coefficient for such plasma based on soft X-ray lasers. In the present work, the plasma active medium parameters for germanium element at a wavelength of 19.6 nm irradiated by a double-pulse pump laser have been studied using MED103 hydrodynamic code. For this purpose, first, the effects of laser intensity, pulse width and delay time of two pulses on the gain coefficient have been investigated and the optimum conditions for the maximum gain extent of Ne-like germanium soft X-ray laser are obtained. Then, in order to calculate the intensity of such high gain lasers in which Linford equation is invalid, we have adopted the general formula of amplified spontaneous emission intensity, which is valid in all range of intensities even at much higher intensities than saturation intensity. Finally, the soft X-ray laser intensities in the saturated areas for different plasma lengths have been calculated. The results show that the output of soft X-ray laser intensity with 294 cm⁻¹ gain coefficient can reach to about several times saturated intensity by applying a 1–2 mm plasma length as the active medium.     

A simple method to estimate relative stabilities of polyethers cationized by alkali metal ions

Dissociation of doubly cationized polyethers, namely [P + 2X]²⁺ into [P + X]⁺ and X⁺, where P = polyethylene glycol (PEG), polypropylene glycol (PPG) and polytetrahydrofuran (PTHF) and X = Na, K and Cs, was studied by means of energy‐dependent collision‐induced dissociation tandem mass spectrometry. It was observed that the collision voltage necessary to obtain 50% fragmentation (CV₅₀) determined for the doubly cationized polyethers of higher degree of polymerization varied linearly with the number of degrees of freedom (DOF) values. This observation allowed us to correlate these slopes with the corresponding relative gas‐phase dissociation energies for binding of alkali ions to polyethers. The relative dissociation energies determined from the corresponding slopes were found to decrease in the order Na⁺ > K⁺ > Cs⁺ for each polyether studied, and an order PPG ≈ PEG > PTHF can be established for each alkali metal ion. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.