Simultaneous Determination of Gallic Acid and Folic Acid in Fruit Juice Samples Using Square Wave Voltammetry at Electrochemically Pretreated Carbon Paste Electrode

An efficient sensor was developed for the simultaneous determination of gallic and folic acid in juice samples using an electrochemically pretreated carbon paste electrode. The electrode was characterized by CV and EIS. The electrochemical behavior of GA and FA was evaluated by CV and SWV. The electrode exhibited high electrocatalytic activity towards GA and FA due to high surface area. Under the optimized condition, linear plots in the ranges of 0.08–13 μM and 0.1 to 15 μM were obtained for GA and FA, respectively. The proposed method was successful for the simultaneous determination of GA and FA in juice samples with satisfactory recovery.     

The study of the influence of uniaxial stress on impurity complexes in silicon

The influence of external uniaxial stress on the different indium-donor complexes in silicon has been studied using the perturbed γ –γ angular correlation (PAC) method. Such effect of an applied stress is detected by means of the probe atoms situated at different complexes in the sample. The current results showed that the responses of the probes in an extrinsic silicon samples are found to be dissimilar for the same value of stress. Such change in the local environments of the probe atoms could be associated with the various strain field created by the implantations of varied size of impurities. The phosphorous implantation in silicon has even lead to the complete absence of observable effect of the applied stress suggesting significant lose of the elasticity of the sample.     

Short-Chained Platinum Complex Catalyzed Hydrosilylation under Thermomorphic Conditions: Heterogeneous Phase Separation at Ice Temperature

Homogeneous catalysts PtCl₂[5,5′-bis-(n-ClCF₂(CF₂)₃CH₂OCH₂)-2,2′-bpy] (2A) and PtCl₂[5,5′-bis-(n-HCF₂(CF₂)₃CH₂OCH₂)-2,2′-bpy] (2B), which contained short fluorous chains, were synthesized and used in catalysis of hydrosilylation of alkynes. In these reactions the thermomorphic mode was effectively used to recover these catalysts from the reaction mixture up to eight cycles by taking advantage of heterogeneous phase separation at ice temperature. This kind of catalysis had previously been observed in fluorous catalysts of platinum containing about 50% F-content, but in this work the percentage of F-content is decreased to only about 30%, by which we termed them as “very light fluorous”. Our new type of catalyst with limited number of F-content is considered as the important discovery in the fluorous technology field as the reduced number of fluorine atoms will help to be able to comply the EPA 8-carbon rule. The metal leaching after the reaction has been examined by ICP-MS, and the testing results show the leaching of residual metal to be minimal. Additionally, comparing these results to our previous work, fluorous chain assisted selectivity has been observed when different fluorous chain lengths of the catalysts are used. It has been found that there exists fluorous chain assisted better selectivity towards β-(E) form in the Pt-catalyzed hydrosilylation of non-symmetric terminal alkyne when the Pt catalyst contains short fluorous chain (i.e., 4 Cs). Phenyl acetylenes showed the opposite regioselectivity due to pi-pi interaction while using the same catalyst via Markovnikov’s addition to form terminal vinyl silane, which is then a major product for Pt-catalyzed hydrosilylation of terminal aryl acetylene with triethylsilane. Finally, the kinetic studies indicate that the insertion of alkyne into the Pt-H bond is the rate-determining step.     

Polymer-modified glassy carbon electrode for the electrochemical detection of quinine in human urine and pharmaceutical formulations

Glassy carbon electrode was modified by electropolymerization of 4-amino-3-hydroxynaphthalene sulfonic acid. Cyclic voltammetric study of quinine showed higher current response at the modified electrode compared to the bare and activated glassy carbon electrodes in pH 7.0 phosphate buffer solution. Under optimized conditions, a calibration curve was obtained by square wave voltammetry at the modified electrode. The linear relationship between the peak current and the concentration of quinine in the range of 1.0?×?10^?7 to 1.0?×?10^?5 M was I _pa (in microamperes)?=?6.26C (in micromolars)?+?0.2997 (R ²?=?0.999). The detection limit calculated (S/N?=?3) was 1.42?×?10^?8 M, which is much lower than similar reports. The method was successfully applied for the determination of quinine in spiked human urine, and pharmaceutical formulations and recovery values >90 % were obtained.     

Nonlinear optical absorption properties of porphyrins confined in Nafion membrane

The nonlinear absorption (NLA) properties of five different types of porphyrins were studied using the Z-scan technique. The porphyrins under investigation were confined into Nafion column matrix membrane in order to protect them from possible degradation. The results of the experiments have indicated that all the porphyrins tested exhibited interesting NLA properties. The nonlinear absorption coefficients (β’s) were determined at different porphyrin concentrations by comparing the Z-scan data with the theoretical functions.     

Indirect voltammetric determination of caffeine content in coffee using 1,4-benzoquinone modified carbon paste electrode

In this paper a simple and highly sensitive electroanalytical method for the determination of caffeine content using 1,4-benzoquinone modified carbon paste electrode is presented. The method is based on suppression of 1,4-benzoquinone peak current on addition of caffeine. Square-wave and cyclic voltammetric techniques were utilised for the investigation. The 1,4-benzoquinone modified electrode exhibited a well-defined peak with reproducible peak current values for repetitive measurements; and showed a decrease in peak current value with an increase in caffeine content. The result revealed two linear range regions between 0 mmol L⁻¹ and 0.5 mmol L⁻¹ and 0.5 mmol L⁻¹ and 8.0 mmol L⁻¹, with detection limits of 0.3 μmol L⁻¹ and 5.1 μmol L⁻¹, respectively. The method was then successfully applied to the determination of caffeine content in coffee samples. The effects of pH, electrode composition, step potential, pulse amplitude and square-wave frequency on the voltammetric responses were also investigated.     

Sign patterns that require almost unique rank

A sign pattern matrix is a matrix whose entries are from the set {+,-,0}. For a real matrix B, sgn(B) is the sign pattern matrix obtained by replacing each positive (respectively, negative, zero) entry of B by + (respectively, −, 0). For a sign pattern matrix A, the sign pattern class of A, denoted Q(A), is defined as {B:sgn(B)=A}. The minimum rank mr(A) (maximum rank MR(A)) of a sign pattern matrix A is the minimum (maximum) of the ranks of the real matrices in Q(A). Several results concerning sign patterns A that require almost unique rank, that is to say, the sign patterns A such that MR(A) = mr(A) + 1, are established and are extended to sign patterns A for which the spread is d=MR(A)-mr(A). A complete characterization of the sign patterns that require almost unique rank is obtained.     

Temperature-dependent hyperfine interactions at 111Cd-C complex in germanium

The temperature dependent nuclear hyperfine interaction of ¹¹¹Cd-carbon complex in germanium has been studied using the perturbed γ–γ angular correlation (PAC) method. The parameters of the hyperfine interaction representing substitutional carbon–cadmium complex in germanium (ν _Q1=207(1) MHz (η=0.16)) shows dependence on temperature. The formation and thermal stability of the complex has been reported by the same author earlier. It was found in this study that the quadrupole coupling constant of the interaction increases at sample temperature below 293 K. The results are encouraging toward better understanding of the complex in the host matrix.