Mesoporous material as catalyst for the production of fine chemical: Synthesis of dimethyl phthalate assisted by hydrophobic nature MCM-41

Aluminum, iron and zinc containing MCM-41 molecular sieves were prepared by the hydrothermal method. The catalyst was characterized by the XRD, BET (surface area), FT–IR and ²⁹Si, ²⁷Al MAS–NMR techniques. The catalytic activity of these molecular sieves was tested with esterification reaction used with phthalic anhydride (PAH) and methanol (MeOH) in the autoclave at 135 °C, 150 °C and 175 °C. Conversion increases with an increase in temperature and mole ratio. The activity of these catalysts followed the order: Al-MCM-41 (112) > Fe-MCM-41 (115) > Al-MCM-41 (70) > Al-MCM-41 (52) > Fe-MCM-41 (61) > Al, Zn-MCM-41 (104) > Al-MCM-41 (30). The reaction yielded both monomethyl phthalate (MMP) and dimethyl phthalate (DMP). The nature of the catalyst sites has been proposed using with water as an impurity. The selectivity of the dimethyl phthalate increases with increase in temperature and mole ratio. The weight of the catalyst was optimized at 0.07 g. The hydrophilic and hydrophobic nature of the catalyst has been explained by the influence of water and the external surface acidity also facilitates the reaction and this has been confirmed by the supporting reaction.     

Kinetics and mechanism of oxidation of substituted benzaldehydes by quinolinium fluorochromate

The kinetics of oxidation of a number of meta- and para-substituted benzaldehydes by quinolinium fluorochromate, QFC has been studied in aqueous acetic acid medium in the presence of acid. The products of oxidation are the corresponding benzoic acids. The reaction is first order each in substrate, QFC and HClO₄. Electron-withdrawing substituents increase the rate, while electron-releasing substituents decrease it and the rate data obey Hammett's relationship. The reaction constant for the oxidation has a value of 1.16±0.07 at 30°C. The activation enthalpies and entropies are calculated and the possible mechanism for oxidation is discussed.     

Pt‐Nanoparticle Incorporated Carbon Paste Electrode for the Determination of Cu(II) Ion by Anodic Stripping Voltammetry

Pt‐nanoparticles were synthesized and introduced into a carbon paste electrode (CPE), and the resulting modified electrode was applied to the anodic stripping voltammetry of copper(II) ions. The synthesized Pt‐nanoparticles were characterized by cyclic voltammetry, scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy techniques to confirm the purity and the size of the prepared Pt‐nanoparticles (ca. 20 nm). This incorporated material seems to act as catalysts with preconcentration sites for copper(II) species that enhances the sensitivity of Cu(II) ions to Cu(I) species at a deposition potential of ?0.6 V in an aqueous solution. The experimental conditions, such as, the electrode composition, pH of the solution, pre‐concentration time, were optimized for the determination of Cu(II) ion using as‐prepared electrode. The sensitivity changes on the different binder materials and the presence of surfactants in the test solution. The interference effect of the coexisted metals were also investigated. In the presence of surfactants, especially TritonX‐100, the Cu(II) detection limit was lowered to 3.9×10^?9 M. However, the Pt‐nanoparticle modified CPE begins to degrade when the period of deposition exceeds to 10 min. Linear response for copper(II) was found in the concentration range between 3.9×10^?8 M and 1.6×10^?6 M, with an estimated detection limit of 1.6×10^?8 M (1.0 ppb) and relative standard deviation was 4.2% (n=5).     

Sodium 5‐nitro‐2‐pyridonate trihydrate

The title compound, alternatively sodium pyridin‐2‐olate trihydrate, Na⁺·C₅H₃N₂O₃^?·3H₂O, crystallizes in the P space group. It is made up of edge‐shared chains of NaO₆ octahedra with five water mol­ecules and one 5‐nitro‐2‐pyridonate anion. Four of these water mol­ecules are bicoordinating, involved in connecting the adjacent octahedra, and the fifth is coordinated to only one octahedron. The crystal structure is stabilized by a network of strong O—H?O and O—H?N interactions. The organic moieties occupy the space between the chains with an antiparallel alignment.     

Synthesis and Characterization of 1,2-Dimethyl Imidazolium Ionic Liquids and Their Catalytic Activities

The synthesis of substituted imidazolium-type ionic liquids via a simple method is described. Our synthesized ionic liquids are more useful in the catalytic behavior of the Mannich reaction.     

Effect of Cortisol on Caspases in the Co-cultured C2C12 and 3 T3-L1 Cells

The present study was carried out to understand the effect of cortisol on caspase expression in the C2C12 and 3 T3-L1 cells under co-culture system. Cells were co-cultured by using transwell inserts with a 0.4-μm porous membrane to separate C2C12 and 3 T3-L1 preadipocyte cells. Each cell type was grown independently on the transwell plates. Following cell differentiation, inserts containing 3 T3-L1 cells were transferred to C2C12 plates and inserts containing C2C12 cells were transferred to 3 T3-L1 plates. A total of 10 μg/μl of cortisol was added to the medium. Following treatment of cortisol for 3 days, the cells in the lower well were harvested for analysis. Caspases such as caspase 3, caspase 7, and caspase 9 were selected for the analysis. qRT-PCR results indicated the significant increase in the mRNA expression of caspase 3, caspase 7, and caspase 9. Caspase 3, 7, and 9 activities were also increased in the mono- and co-cultured C2C12 and 3 T3-L1 cells. In addition, confocal microscopical investigation indicated that cortisol increases caspase expressions in the mono- and co-cultured C2C12 and 3 T3-L1 cells. Taking all these together, we concluded that the co-culture system reflects the exact effect of cortisol on caspase expression, which is quite distinct from one dimensional mono-cultured experiments.     

Discovery Through Gossip

We study randomized gossip‐based processes in dynamic networks that are motivated by information discovery in large‐scale distributed networks such as peer‐to‐peer and social networks. A well‐studied problem in peer‐to‐peer networks is resource discovery, where the goal for nodes (hosts with IP addresses) is to discover the IP addresses of all other hosts. Also, some of the recent work on self‐stabilization algorithms for P2P/overlay networks proceed via discovery of the complete network. In social networks, nodes (people) discover new nodes through exchanging contacts with their neighbors (friends). In both cases the discovery of new nodes changes the underlying network — new edges are added to the network — and the process continues in the changed network. Rigorously analyzing such dynamic (stochastic) processes in a continuously changing topology remains a challenging problem with obvious applications. This paper studies and analyzes two natural gossip‐based discovery processes. In the push discovery or triangulation process, each node repeatedly chooses two random neighbors and connects them (i.e., “pushes” their mutual information to each other). In the pull discovery process or the two‐hop walk, each node repeatedly requests or “pulls” a random contact from a random neighbor and connects itself to this two‐hop neighbor. Both processes are lightweight in the sense that the amortized work done per node is constant per round, local, and naturally robust due to the inherent randomized nature of gossip. Our main result is an almost‐tight analysis of the time taken for these two randomized processes to converge. We show that in any undirected n‐node graph both processes take rounds to connect every node to all other nodes with high probability, whereas is a lower bound. We also study the two‐hop walk in directed graphs, and show that it takes time with high probability, and that the worst‐case bound is tight for arbitrary directed graphs, whereas Ω(n²) is a lower bound for strongly connected directed graphs. A key technical challenge that we overcome in our work is the analysis of a randomized process that itself results in a constantly changing network leading to complicated dependencies in every round. We discuss implications of our results and their analysis to discovery problems in P2P networks as well as to evolution in social networks. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 565–587, 2016     

Dechlorination of beta-methylallyl chloride by electrogenerated [Co(I)(bipyridine)3]+: an electrochemical study in the presence of cationic surfactants

We have investigated the electrocatalytic dehalogenation of beta-methylallyl chloride (beta-mAC), widely used in the polymer industry, using [Co(I)(bpy)3]+ (where bpy=2,2'-bipyridine) electrochemically generated in situ from [Co(II)(bpy)3]2+ at a glassy carbon electrode in the presence of three different cationic surfactants in aqueous solution. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TDTAB), and cetylbenzyldimethylammonium chloride (CBDAC) were employed in the present investigation. The [Co(II)(bpy)3]2+-cationic surfactant systems show excellent electrocatalytic activity toward dehalogenation of beta-mAC. The dependence of the catalytic current, the corresponding potential, and the current function on the potential scan rate has been analyzed to assess the nature of the catalytic reaction. The second-order rate constant, kchem, for the reaction between the beta-mAC substrate and the electrogenerated-micelle stabilized-Co(I) complex has been calculated by a cyclic voltammetry technique. The reduction products after 3 h of bulk electrolysis have been identified by GC/MS to be one nonchloro compound (2-methyl-1,5-hexadiene (IV)) and two chloro compounds (1-chloro-2,5-dimethyl-2,5-hexadiene (V) and spiro[1.2]cylopropyl-6-chloro-5-methyl-hex-4-ene (VI)). Based on the electrochemical results and the mass spectral data, a reaction scheme involving all the reduction products has been proposed. Finally, a good correlation between the catalytic efficiency and the structural features of the surfactant molecules is demonstrated. The present study emphasizes the need for further optimization work to achieve maximum yield of nonchloro compound (IV) to employ the present [Co(II)(bpy)3]2+-cationic surfactant systems with a high catalytic efficiency as promising for possible applications.