Electrophoretically deposited sulfonated poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) on a screw for microextraction of cationic dyes from aqueous solutions

In the present work, a novel solid-phase microextraction on a screw (MES) was employed to extract cationic dyes (malachite green, methylene blue, and rhodamine B) from food samples and fish breeding pool water. The sulfonated poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) was electrophoretically deposited on the surface of the grooves of a screw. Then the screw was placed inside a silicon tube as a holder to create a channel to run a test solution through it. The extracted dyes on the coated screw were eluted by a suitable eluent. High-performance liquid chromatography with an ultraviolet/visible detector was utilized for the separation and analysis of the analytes. The effective parameters of the analyte extraction efficiency were optimized. Under optimum conditions, the limits of detection were 0.15 μg/L, and calibration curves were linear in the range of 0.50–250.00 μg/L, with coefficients of determination > 0.989 for all studied dyes. The relative standard deviations of intra and inter-day (n = 3) were in the range of 2.8%–7.0% and 7.0%–9.5%, respectively. The MES was applied as a simple and repeatable method with acceptable relative recoveries (82.0%–103.0%) for the determination of cationic dyes in grape nectar, ice pop, jelly powder, and fish breeding pool water.     

Chlorine‐Enhanced Surface Mobility of Au(100)

Motivated by experimental studies of two‐dimensional Ostwald ripening on Au(100) electrodes in chlorine‐containing electrolytes, we have studied diffusion processes using density functional theory. We find that chlorine has a propensity to temporary form AuCl complexes, which diffuse significantly faster than gold adatoms. With and without chlorine, the lowest activation energy is found for the exchange mechanism. Chlorine furthermore reduces the activation energy for the detachment from kink sites. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations were performed on the basis of extensive density functional theory calculations. The island‐decay rate obtained from these Monte Carlo simulations, as well as the decay rate obtained from the theoretical activation energies and frequency factors when inserted into analytical solutions for Ostwald ripening, are in agreement with experimental island‐decay rates in chlorine‐containing electrolytes.     

Synthesis of Fe—Ni—Ce trimetallic catalyst nanoparticles via impregnation and co-precipitation and their application to dye degradation

In this study, trimetallic catalysts were prepared via the co-precipitation and impregnation methods. In order to investigate the effect of impregnation on the catalytic activity and crystallite size, a trimetallic catalyst, Fe—Ni—Ce, was prepared through the co-precipitation method in one set of experiments, and cerium was impregnated with the Ni—Fe mixture in the final stage of the preparation in another set. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was employed to confirm the formation of trimetallic catalysts and the success of the impregnation method. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller nitrogen adsorption isotherm exhibits a high specific surface area (approximately 39 m² g^?1) for the nanoparticles obtained by the impregnation method. The crystallography and morphology of the trimetallic catalysts thus prepared were characterised by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. UV-VIS spectroscopy and methylene blue dye degradation tests were also performed to investigate the catalytic activity of the synthesised catalysts. The crystalline size was found to be smaller for the catalysts prepared by the impregnation method. In addition, the samples synthesised using the cerium impregnation method showed superior activity in the methylene blue dye degradation test. The effect of the catalyst dosage on dye degradation, as well as the effect of the initial dye concentration on the catalyst activity, was also studied for both methods.     

Synthesize,Characterization and Application of Phosphine‐free Polymer Supported Palladium Nanoparticles as Effective Catalyst in Suzuki‐Miyaura Cross‐coupling Reactions

Heterogeneous catalysts were developed by supporting palladium nanoparticles on modified cross‐linked polyacrylamide and successfully applied in Suzuki‐Miyaura cross‐coupling reactions. These catalysts are stable to air and moisture, and no sign of metal leaching was detected during the reactions as judged by elemental analysis of palladium by ICP‐OES technique and hot filtration test, which demonstrates the heterogeneous character of the catalysts. High yields of desired products were resulted by using these phosphine‐free catalysts at temperatures below 80 °C without aid of any additional ligands. The heat stability of the catalysts at the operating temperature was confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). These catalysts are easy to use and cost effective. They can be recovered from reaction mixture by a simple filtration and reused in more successive reactions without significant loss in activity. The catalyst activity was restored by an ultrasonication program after deactivation in 10 cycles.     

An evaluation scheme for nanotechnology policies

Dozens of countries are executing national nanotechnology plans. No rigorous evaluation scheme for these plans exists, although stakeholders—especially policy makers, top-level agencies and councils, as well as the society at large—are eager to learn the outcome of these policies. In this article, we recommend an evaluation scheme for national nanotechnology policies that would be used to review the whole or any component part of a national nanotechnology plan. In this scheme, a component at any level of aggregation is evaluated. The component may be part of the plan’s overarching policy goal, which for most countries is to create wealth and improve the quality of life of their nation with nanotechnology. Alternatively, the component may be a programme or an activity related to a programme. The evaluation could be executed at different times in the policy’s life cycle, i.e., before the policy is formulated, during its execution or after its completion. The three criteria for policy evaluation are appropriateness, efficiency and effectiveness. The evaluator should select the appropriate qualitative or quantitative methods to evaluate the various components of national nanotechnology plans.     

Deformation parameter changes in fission mass yields within the systematic statistical scission-point model

The fission fragment mass-yields are evaluated for pre-actinide and actinide isotopes using a systematic statistical scission point model. The total potential energy of the fissioning systems at the scission point is presented in approximate relations as functions of mass numbers,deformation parameters and the temperature of complementary fission fragments. The collective temperature, Tcoll, and the temperature of fission fragments, Ti, are separated and the effect of collective temperature on mass yields results is investigated. The fragment temperature has been calculated with the generalized superfluid model. The sum of deformation parameters of complementary fission fragments has been obtained by fitting the calculated results with the experimental data. To investigate the transitions between symmetric and asymmetric modes mass yields for pre-actinide and heavy actinides are calculated with this model. The transition from asymmetric to symmetric fission is well reproduced using this systematic statistical scission point model. The calculated results are in good agreement with the experimental data with Tcoll= 2 Me V at intermediate excitation energy and with T_(coll)= 1MeV for spontaneous fission.Despite the Langevin model, in the scission point model, a constraint on the deformation parameters of fission fragments has little effect on the results of the mass yield.     

Granular micromechanics based micromorphic model predicts frequency band gaps

Granular materials are typically characterized by complex structure and composition. Continuum modeling, therefore, remains the mainstay for describing properties of these material systems. In this paper, we extend the granular micromechanics approach by considering enhanced kinematic analysis. In this analysis, a decomposition of the relative movements of interacting grain pairs into parts arising from macro-scale strain as well as micro-scale strain measures is introduced. The decomposition is then used to formulate grain-scale deformation energy functions and derive inter-granular constitutive laws. The macro-scale deformation energy density is defined as a summation of micro-scale deformation energy defined for each interacting grain pair. As a result, a micromorphic continuum model for elasticity of granular media is derived and applied to investigate the wave propagation behavior. Dispersion graphs for different cases and different ratios between the microscopic stiffness parameters have been presented. It is seen that the model has the capability to present band gaps over a large range of wave numbers.