Chemical microcharacterization of ultrathin iodide conversion layers and adsorbed thiocyanate surface layers on silver halide microcrystals with time-of-flight SIMS.

The technique of imaging time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) and dual beam depth profiling has been used to study the composition of the surface of tabular silver halide microcrystals. Analysis of individual microcrystals with a size well below 1 microm from a given emulsion is possible. The method is successfully applied for the characterization of silver halide microcrystals with subpercent global iodide concentrations confined in surface layers with a thickness below 5 nm. The developed TOF-SIMS analytical procedure is explicitly demonstrated for the molecular imaging of adsorbed thiocyanate layers (SCN) at crystal surfaces of individual crystals and for the differentiation of iodide conversion layers synthesized with KI and with AgI micrates (nanocrystals with a size between 10 and 50 nm). It can be concluded that TOF-SIMS as a microanalytical, surface-sensitive technique has some unique properties over other analytical techniques for the study of complex structured surface layers of silver halide microcrystals. This offers valuable information to support the synthesis of future photographic emulsions.     

Formation of secondary ozonides in the gas-phase ozonolysis of simple alkenes

Secondary propene ozonide and isobutene ozonide were formed in the gas-phase ozonolysis of ethene with added acetaldehyde and acetone, respectively. Combined with the formation of hydroperoxymethyl formate and methoxymethyl hydroperoxide in the ethene-ozone reaction system in the presence of HCOOH and CH₃OH, respectively, formation of the secondary ozonides reveals a close similarity between the gas-phase and the liquid-phase ozonolysis of alkenes.     

Average local electrostatic potential and the core-valency separation in atoms

The average local electrostatic potential function, V(r)/ ρ(r), is calculated for 87 atoms, Li-Ac, in the ground state using the nonrelativistic average-over-configuration numerical Hartree-Fock density. It is found empirically that in a given atom the shell boundaries are expressed as the successively increasing maxima in V(r)/ ρ(r) and the outermost maximum presents good approximate estimates of the core-valence separation in atoms. The likeness in behavior of V(r)/ ρ(r) at each shell boundary with the maximum hardness principle is discussed. The single-exponent-fit parameters for the electron density in the valency region are provided for all atoms. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Microstructural investigation of monoglyceride-water coagel systems by NMR and CryoSEM

Monoglyceride coagels consist of a network of plate-like crystals and are formed from a swollen gel state (alpha-gel). In order to resolve the transition mechanism, coagels were prepared with monoglycerides that differ in fatty acid composition (monomyristate and palmitate/stearate, respectively). Rheology provided information on kinetics of coagel formation and the strength of the resulting crystal network. From NMR measurements, the surface-to-volume ratio, tortuosity, and dimensionality of the network were obtained. These findings were in line with qualitative and quantitative structural information obtained from CryoSEM. As a model for the behaviour of non-monoglyceride species, the dynamics of (perdeuterated) palmitic acid was monitored in both alpha-gels and coagels. The experimental data support a two-stage mechanism. In the first stage, two-dimensional separation of D- and L-isomers in the monoglyceride bilayers of the alpha-gel occurs. This process depends primarily on lateral diffusion rate of the monoglycerides. Palmitic acid can be accommodated in the alpha-gel bilayer, but in the coagels it is separated into relative mobile and mechanically weak junction zones between the crystal plates. In the second stage of coagel formation, the crystal plates also grow in the third dimension. Both monoglyceride type and concentration determine the kinetics of this process.     

Calculation of the information content of retrieval procedures applied to mass spectral data bases

A procedure has been developed for estimating the information content of retrieval systems with binary-coded mass spectra, as well as mass spectra coded by other methods, from the statistical properties of a reference file. For a reference file, binary-coded with a threshold of 1% of the intensity of the base peak, this results typically in an estimated information content of about 50 bits for 200 selected $\text{m}\text{z}$ values. It is shown that, because of errors occurring in the binary-coded spectra, the actual information content is only about 12 bits. This explains the poor performance observed for retrieval systems with binary-coded mass spectra.     

Regulation of plastic from a circular economy perspective

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Linear-quadratic stochastic pursuit-evasion games

A linear-quadratic differential game in which the system state is affected by disturbance and both players have access to different measurements is solved. The problem is first converted to an optimization problem in infinite-dimensional state space and then solved using standard techniques. For convenience, L ₂-white noise instead of Wiener process setup is used.