Intermolecular hydroamination of vinyl arenes using tungstophosphoric acid as a simple and efficient catalyst

The intermolecular hydroamination of vinyl arene derivatives has been efficiently carried out using a tungstophosphoric acid (TPA) catalyst under solvent free and mild reaction conditions. The present protocol provides an environmentally benign, easy to handle and highly active solid acid catalyst for hydroamination of vinyl arenes. The catalyst yields both hydroamination and hydroarylation products and the selectivity mostly depends on the reaction conditions.     

A finite element model for nonlinear behaviour of piezoceramics under weak electric fields

It has been experimentally observed that piezoceramic materials exhibit different types of nonlinearities under different combinations of electric and mechanical fields. When excited near resonance in the presence of weak e to a Duffinor such as jump phenomena and presence of superharmonics in the response spectra. There has not been much work in the litrature to model these types of nonlinearities. Some authors have developed one-dimensional models for the above phenomenon and derived closed-form solutions for the displacement response of piezo-actuators. However, the generalized three-dimensional (3-D) formulation of electric enthalpy, the variational formulation and the FEM implementation have not yet been addressed, which are the focus of this paper. In this work, these nonlinearities have been modelled in a 3-D piezoelectric continuum using higher order quadratic and cubic terms in the generalized electric enthalpy density function. The coupled nonlinear finite element equations have been derived using variational formulation. A special linearization technique for assembling the nonlinear matrices and solution of the resulting nonlinear equations has been developed. The method has been used for simulating the nonlinear frequency response of a lead zirconate titanate plate excited near its first in-plane vibration resonance frequency with sinusoidal excitations of different electric field strengths. The results have been compared with those of the experiment.     

Hydrodechlorination of chlorobenzene over supported metal catalysts

The use of supported Pd catalysts, with low and high metal content, for the hydrodechlorination of chlorobenzene is presented in this article. Application of microwave irradiation during preparation of catalysts resulted in the synthesis of large Pd particles at moderate temperatures. The nature of the support played a key role in the formation of cationic Pd species. The extent of interaction of the Pd species with the support, the nature of metal precursor, particularly the residual chlorine on the surface were found to significantly affect the activity of the catalysts. In the case of bimetallic catalysts also microwave heating resulted in creation of bigger particles of Pd compared to those observed in conventionally heated catalysts. Besides, it minimized alloy formation as a result of which the activity of the catalysts in hydrodechlorination was found to be higher compared to that observed on conventionally prepared catalysts. Contrary to the general observation that low dispersed Pd catalysts are preferable for high stability, by means of the deposition-precipitation method adopted for catalyst preparation it was demonstrated that even highly dispersed (low Pd containing) catalysts can exhibit comparable activity and stability. An analysis of the nature of Pd species and its role in the stability of the catalysts is presented.IICT communication No. 051224     

On M/M/1 queues with a smart machine

This paper discusses a class of M/M/1 queueing models in which the service time of a customer depends on the number of customers served in the current busy period. It is particularly suited for applications in which the server has kind of learning ability and warms up gradually. We present a simple and computationally tractable scheme which recursively determines the stationary probabilities of the queue length. Other performance measures such as the Laplace transform of the busy period are also obtained. For the firstN exceptional services model which can be considered as a special case of our model, we derive a closed-formula for the generating function of the stationary queue length distribution. Numerical examples are also provided.     

Facile synthesis and antimicrobial properties of 2‐(substituted‐benzylsulfanyl)‐1h‐benzimidazoles

A simple and convenient procedure for the preparation of 2‐benzylthiobenzirnidazoles by the reaction of 2‐mercaptobenzimidazole and benzyl bromides in acetone/potassium carbonate condition has been reported and the compounds were screened for their potential antimicrobial activities.     

Iron(III) chloride as an efficient catalyst for stereoselective synthesis of glycosyl azides and a cocatalyst with Cu(0) for the subsequent click chemistry

A highly efficient and mild method for azido glycosylation of glycosyl β-peracetates to 1,2-trans glycosyl azides was developed by using inexpensive FeCl(3) as the catalyst. In addition, we demonstrated, for the first time, that FeCl(3) in combination with copper powder can promote 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition (click chemistry) of azido glycosides with terminal alkynes. Good to excellent yields were obtained with exclusive formation of a single isomer in both glycosyl azidation and subsequent cycloaddition processes.     

Analytical solution in 2D domain for nonlinear response of piezoelectric slabs under weak electric fields

Piezoceramic materials exhibit different types of nonlinearities depending upon the magnitude of the mechanical and electric field strength in the continuum. Some of the nonlinearities observed under weak electric fields are: presence of superharmonics in the response spectra and jump phenomena etc. especially if the system is excited near resonance. In this paper, an analytical solution (in 2D plane stress domain) for the nonlinear response of a rectangular piezoceramic slab has been obtained by use of Rayleigh–Ritz method and perturbation technique. The eigenfunction obtained from solution of the differential equation of the linear problem has been used as the shape function in the Rayleigh–Ritz method. Forced vibration experiments have been conducted on a rectangular piezoceramic slab by applying varying electric field strengths across the thickness and the results have been compared with those of analytical solution. The analytical solutions compare well with those of experimental results. These solutions should serve as a method to validate the FE formulations as well as help in the determination of nonlinear material property coefficients for these materials.     

Use of the ac inductive method to assess the quality of bulk melt textured superconductors

Through a measurement of flux profiles, the inductive method of Campbell has not only been used for determining the bulk critical current density of large sized samples but has also been extended to study the coupling strength of the domains in melt textured NdBa₂Cu₃O_7−δ superconductors. An analysis of the profiles measured for the slow (1°C/h) and fast cooled (40°C/h) samples through peritectic temperature, T_p clearly showed that the domain boundaries in the fast cooled samples are decoupled in the presence of external dc fields. The observed features of flux profiles are correlated to the microstructural features of the samples. It is proposed that this technique can be used routinely to assess the quality of large size melt textured samples for high current applications like magnetic bearings or quasi permanent magnets.