A new high: Cannabis as a budding source of carbon-based materials for electrochemical power sources

Cannabis sativa L., a low-cost, fast-growing herbaceous plant, is seeing a resurgence in widespread cultivation as a result of new policies and product drive. Its biodegradable and environmentally benign nature coupled with its high specific surface area and three-dimensional hierarchal structure makes it an excellent candidate for use as a biomass-derived carbon material for electrochemical power sources. It is proposed that this ‘wonder crop’ could have an important role in the energy transition by providing high-functioning carbon-based materials for electrochemistry. In this article, all instances of C. sativa usage in batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors are discussed with a focus on highlighting the high capacity, rate capability, capacitance, current density and half-wave potential that can be achieved with its utilisation in the field.     

The Preparation of Substituted Hydroxyphenyl-pyridyl-ethanols and α-Hydroxyphenyl-α-methylpyridineethanols by the Condensation of 2-, 3-, or 4-Picolyllithium with Select Hydroxy-benzaldehydes and 4-Hydroxyacetophenone

2-, 3-, or 4-Picolyllithium was prepared in excess lithium diiso-propylamide and condensed with several hydroxy-benzaldehydes and 4-hydroxy-acetophenone to afford substituted hydroxyphenyl-pyridyl-ethanols and α-hydroxyphenyl-α-methylpyridineethanols. In two instances. 3-picolyllithium condensed with aldehydes to presumably form the hydroxyphenyl-pyridyl-ethanol, which underwent linear dehydration to the substituted pyridyl-ethylenyl-phenol.     

Water‐Soluble and pH‐Responsive Polymeric Nanotubes from Cyclic Peptide Templates

Water‐soluble organic nanotubes were prepared by convergently conjugating polymers of hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) and acrylic acid (AA) to self‐assembling cyclic octapeptides of alternating D and L chirality. The structure of the self‐assembled tubes was characterised in a number of polar solvents, and notably water, by using light scattering, TEM and small angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques. In addition, the self‐assembly into tubes could be controlled by exploiting the pH responsiveness of acrylic acid polymers.     

Automated,high performance,flow-through chemiluminescence microarray for the multiplexed detection of phycotoxins

A novel multiplexed immunoassay for the analysis of phycotoxins in shellfish samples has been developed. Therefore, a regenerable chemiluminescence (CL) microarray was established which is able to analyze automatically three different phycotoxins (domoic acid (DA), okadaic acid (OA) and saxitoxin (STX)) in parallel on the analysis platform MCR3. As a test format an indirect competitive immunoassay format was applied. These phycotoxins were directly immobilized on an epoxy-activated PEG chip surface. The parallel analysis was enabled by the simultaneous addition of all analytes and specific antibodies on one microarray chip. After the competitive reaction, the CL signal was recorded by a CCD camera. Due to the ability to regenerate the toxin microarray, internal calibrations of phycotoxins in parallel were performed using the same microarray chip, which was suitable for 25 consecutive measurements. For the three target phycotoxins multi-analyte calibration curves were generated. In extracted shellfish matrix, the determined LODs for DA, OA and STX with values of 0.5 ± 0.3 μg L⁻¹, 1.0 ± 0.6 μg L⁻¹, and 0.4 ± 0.2 μg L⁻¹ were slightly lower than in PBS buffer. For determination of toxin recoveries, the observed signal loss in the regeneration was corrected. After applying mathematical corrections spiked shellfish samples were quantified with recoveries for DA, OA, and STX of 86.2%, 102.5%, and 61.6%, respectively, in 20 min. This is the first demonstration of an antibody based phycotoxin microarray.     

Rapid screening test for adulteration in raw materials of dietary supplements

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance (ATR) sampling was evaluated for use in screening for adulteration in raw materials used in the formulation and manufacture of dietary supplements. ATR requires minimal-to-no sample preparation and the method runs in less than ten minutes, providing a robust, rapid screening test for a variety of possible adulterants in the raw materials of dietary supplements. Spectral comparison methods targeting structural similarities of known adulterants were developed. In this study, FTIR-ATR was used to detect the presence of known adulterants intentionally spiked into dietary ingredients, including erectile dysfunction drugs, steroids, weight loss drugs and Melamine.     

A chemoenzymatic synthesis of the linear triquinane (−)-hirsutene and identification of possible precursors to the naturally occurring (+)-enantiomer

An enantiomerically pure cis-1,2-dihydrocatechol, which is readily obtained via a toluene dioxygenase-mediated dihydroxylation of toluene in a whole-cell biotransformation process, has been converted over 17 steps into the linear triquinane (−)-hirsutene. Since the enantiomer of the starting material is also available this work constitutes a formal total synthesis of the naturally occurring (+)-form of hirsutene. Furthermore, minor modifications of the route used here offer the possibility of accessing (+)-hirsutene from the original starting material.     

Uncertainty budget for determinations of mean isomer shift from Mössbauer spectra

The magnetite/maghemite content within iron oxide nanoparticles can be determined using the mean isomer shift (\(\overline {\delta }\)). However, accurate characterisation of the composition is limited by the uncertainty associated with \(\overline {\delta }\). We have identified four independent sources of uncertainty and developed a quantitative expression for the uncertainty budget. Sources of uncertainty are categorised as follows: that from the fitting of the Mössbauer spectrum (σ _fit), that of the calibration of the α-Fe reference spectrum (σ _cal), thermal corrections to the spectrum due to second order Doppler shift (SODS) (σ _Δδ ) and other experimental errors (σ _err). Each contribution is discussed in detail using ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectra obtained from an iron oxide nanoparticle system at temperatures between 16 K and 295 K on different spectrometers in two different laboratories.