Studies on morphology of polyaniline films formed at liquid–liquid and solid–liquid interfaces at 25 and 5 °C,respectively, and effect of doping

It is well accepted that the morphology of the nanomaterials has great effect on the properties and hence their applications. Therefore, morphology of materials has become a focus of research in the scientific world. The present study shows that interfacial polymerization and subsequent self-assembly provides a control over the morphology, nanorod/nanosheet, of polyaniline (PANI) films synthesized by liquid–liquid interface reaction technique and solid–liquid interface reaction technique. The synthesized PANI films and its particulate structure are characterized by using various spectroscopic techniques such as UV–visible, ATR-IR, Raman and XPS. The study confirmed the formation, the structure, the size and shape of particles and morphology of PANI by using analytical techniques namely, SAED, SEM and TEM. An important observation is that doping with HCl significantly improves the nanorod formation at the interface. The doped PANI electrode exhibits a higher area with rectangular shape in CV cycle and better cycle stability when compared with the performance of undoped PANI films. We believe that the results of these studies can give valuable leads to manoeuvre formation of PANI films with desired morphology for various applications.

Copper phthalocyanine films deposited by liquid-liquid interface recrystallization technique (LLIRCT)

The simple recrystallization process is innovatively used to obtain the nanoparticles of copper phthalocyanine by a simple method. Liquid-liquid interface recrystallization technique (LLIRCT) has been employed successfully to produce small sized copper phthalocyanine nanoparticles with diameter between 3-5 nm. The TEM-SAED studies revealed the formation of 3-5 nm sized with beta-phase dominated mixture of alpha and beta copper phthalocyanine nanoparticles. The XRD, SEM, and the UV-vis studies were further carried out to confirm the formation of copper phthalocyanine thin films. The cyclic voltametry (CV) studies conclude that redox reaction is totally reversible one electron transfer process. The process is attributed to Cu(II)/Cu(I) redox reaction.     

A weight-function approach for determining watershed initial conditions for combustion waves

In many generic combustion models, one finds that a combustionwave will develop with a specific wave speed. However, thereare possible initial temperature profiles which do not evolveinto such waves, but rather die out to the ambient temperature.There can exist, in some models, a clear distinction betweenthose initial conditions that do evolve into combustion wavesand those that do not; this is sometimes referred to as thewatershed initial condition. When fuel consumption is consideredto be negligible, analytical methods can be used to obtain theexact watershed. In this paper, we consider the problem of determiningpseudo-watersheds and ascertaining the relationship betweenthese pseudo-watersheds and the exact watersheds. In the processa novel weight-function approach for infinite spatial domainsis developed.     

Retardance properties of Twisted Ferro-electric Liquid Crystal

The present work presents, for the first time, the dynamic evolution of the hysteresis loops R(V), specifically based onto the total retardance polarimetric parameter R(t) extracted from the Mueller Matrix (MM) of Twisted Ferro-electric Liquid Crystal (TwFLC) samples. This evolution is given for increased exposure time T_exp to a rectangular periodic electric field E_app preliminary applied to the sample, before performing the polarimetric measurements. The Mueller Matrix formalism used is found as a relevant non-destructive and non invasive full-optical method to characterize and to monitor the Twisted Ferro-electric Liquid Crystal cell dynamic behaviour under external applied electric field, before reaching the so-called stripes regime.     

Some remarks on the Jacobian question

This revised version of Abhyankar's old lecture notes contains the original proof of the Galois case of then-variable Jacobian problem. They also contain proofs for some cases of the 2-variable Jacobian, including the two characteristic pairs case. In addition, proofs of some of the well-known formulas enunciated by Abhyankar are actually written down. These include the Taylor Resultant Formula and the Semigroup Conductor formula for plane curves. The notes are also meant to provide inspiration for applying the expansion theoretic techniques to the Jacobian problem.     

Synthesis of cytotoxic cyanobactin,Wewakazole B

We report herein the synthesis of cytotoxic cyanobactin, Wewakazole B through an efficient solution-phase approach. The key steps of the synthesis are the macrocyclic lactamization of linear dodecapeptide and construction of two hexapeptides with three different substituted oxazole rings.     

Uniqueness of plane embeddings of special curves

For a family of special affine plane curves, it is shown that their embeddings in the affine plane are unique up to automorphisms of the affine plane. Examples are also given for which the embedding is not unique. We also discuss the Lin-Zaidenberg estimate of the number of singular points of an irreducible curve in terms of its rank. Formulas concerning the rank of the curve lead to an alternate simpler version of the proof of the Epimorphism Theorem.

     

One-step in situ synthesis of NHx-adsorbed rhodium nanocrystals at liquid-liquid interfaces for possible electrocatalytic applications

Nearly monodisperse rhodium nanoparticles with adsorbed NH(x) were synthesized at the CCl(4)-water interface. The presence of NH(x)-adsorbed species was confirmed by energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies. The synthesis of controlled size 2-38 nm rhodium particles was studied as a function of reducing agent concentration by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). HRTEM confirmed the formation of rhodium nanoparticles having fringe spacing consistent with reported Rh (111) planes. The continuity of these films over an area of 1×1 μm was revealed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies. The electrocatalytic application of these nanostructure Rh-NH(x) thin films for formaldehyde oxidation in 0.5M NaOH was investigated by cyclic voltammetry. The Rh nanoparticles formed by the present strategy are expected to be useful for other catalytic applications also.