The intercalation of bicyclic and tricyclic carboxylates into layered double hydroxides

Twenty-four nanocomposites built from layered double hydroxides and bicyclic and tricyclic carboxylates have been synthesised for the first time. Eight carboxylates were successfully intercalated into [LiAl₂(OH)₆]Cl·yH₂O, [Ca₂Al(OH)₆]NO₃·yH₂O, and [Mg₂Al(OH)₆]NO₃·yH₂O, and the products fully characterised. Guest species incorporated include 1-adamantane carboxylate (1-AC) and 5-norbornene-2-endo-3-exo-dicarboxylate. In some cases, carbonate anions were co-intercalated with the organic guest, and in others poorly crystalline aluminium hydroxides formed as by-products. Sharper resonances were observed in the ¹³C solid-state NMR spectra of the 1-AC intercalates than in the spectrum of pure 1-AC, suggesting increased order in the arrangement of the cyclic cages in the intercalates. Where possible, time-resolved in situ X-ray diffraction was employed to study the nanoscopic steps involved in the intercalation reactions. These investigations showed that the reactions are one-step processes, proceeding directly to the fully exchanged intercalate with no intermediate phases. The intercalation processes were found to be nucleation controlled.     

Treatment of PVC using an alternative low energy ion bombardment procedure

In many applications, polymers have progressively substituted traditional materials such as ceramics, glasses, and metals. Nevertheless, the use of polymeric materials is still limited by their surface properties. Frequently, selective modifications are necessary to suit the surface to a given application. Amongst the most common treatments, plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) has attracted the attention of many researchers owing to its versatility and practicality. This method, however, requires a power supply to provide high voltage (tens of kV) negative pulses, with a controlled duty cycle, width and frequency. Owing to this, the implementation of PIII on the industrial scale can become economically inviable. In this work, an alternative plasma treatment that enables low energy ion bombardment without the need of a high voltage pulse generator is presented. To evaluate the efficiency of the treatment of polymers, polyvinylchloride, PVC, specimens were exposed to 5 Pa argon plasmas for 3600 s, at excitation powers, P, of between 10 and 125 W. Through contact angle and atomic force microscopy data, the influence of P on the wettability, surface free energy and roughness of the samples was studied. Surface chemical composition was measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, XPS. To evaluate the effect of aging under atmospheric conditions, contact angle and XPS measurements were performed one and 1334 days after the treatment. The plasma potential and ion density around the driven electrode were determined from Langmuir probe measurements while the self-bias potential was derived with the aid of an oscilloscope. From these data it was possible to estimate the mean energy of ions bombarding the PVC surface. Chlorine, carbon and oxygen contamination were detected on the surface of the as-received PVC. Upon exposure to the plasma, the proportion of chlorine was observed to decrease while that of oxygen increased. Consequently, the wettability and surface energy increased after the treatment but such modifications were not stable after aging: the contact angle increased for all the samples, modifying the initially hydrophilic surface into a highly hydrophobic one. Consistently, the surface composition also changed after aging: there was carbon enrichment due to further losses of oxygen and chlorine. Another relevant factor for the elevation of θ was the change in morphology induced by the treatment. At greater powers, the uniform matrix of the PVC was transformed into a columnar structure containing randomly distributed sharp pillars. Interpretation of such results is proposed in terms of the total energy deposited in the solid by ionic collisions.     

Effect of Non-Enzymatic Glycation on Cystatin: A Spectroscopic Study

The study shows the effect of nonenzymatic glycation on conformation and inhibitory activity of chick pea cystatin (CPC). CPC was incubated with different reducing sugars, pentose (D-Ribose), hexoses (D-Glucose, D-Fructose) at 37 °C for 5 weeks. To evaluate the modification of CPC by these different sugars during the glycation process the extent of the Maillard reaction, conformational, structural and functional changes were investigated. The behaviour of glycated CPC was monitored by the techniques of UV and fluorescence spectroscopies. Specific fluorescence was employed to characterise the glycation and AGEs. The anti-papain activity of glycated CPC was found to be significantly lower as compared to its non-glycated form. Glycation with ribose led to maximum loss in inhibitory activity. It was found that the incubation of CPC with all the mentioned sugars led to a parallel increase in tryptophan fluorescence as well as in Maillard and other AGEs specific fluorescence values and hyperchromicity in the UV-region. Among the sugars studied comparatively ribose was found to be the most active in inducing structural and conformational alterations in the protein suggesting its high reactivity with protein amino groups.     

Development of a multiplex system to assess DNA persistence in taphonomic studies

In this study, we have developed a PCR multiplex that can be used to assess DNA degradation and at the same time monitor for inhibition: primers have been designed to amplify human, pig, and rabbit DNA, allowing pig and rabbit to be used as experimental models for taphonomic research, but also enabling studies on human DNA persistence in forensic evidence. Internal amplified controls have been added to monitor for inhibition, allowing the effects of degradation and inhibition to be differentiated. Sequence data for single‐copy nuclear recombination activation gene (RAG‐1) from human, pig, and rabbit were aligned to identify conserved regions and primers were designed that targeted amplicons of 70, 194, 305, and 384 bp. Robust amplification in all three species was possible using as little as 0.3 ng of template DNA. These have been combined with primers that will amplify a bacterial DNA template within the PCR. The multiplex has been evaluated in a series of experiments to gain more knowledge of DNA persistence in soft tissues, which can be important when assessing what material to collect following events such as mass disasters or conflict, when muscle or bone material can be used to aid with the identification of human remains. The experiments used pigs as a model species. When whole pig bodies were exposed to the environment in Northwest England, DNA in muscle tissue persisted for over 24 days in the summer and over 77 days in the winter, with full profiles generated from these samples. In addition to time, accumulated degree days (ADD) were also used as a measure that combines both time and temperature—24 days was in summer equivalent to 295 ADD whereas 77 days in winter was equivalent to 494 ADD.     

Thermal degradation pathways of nickel(II) bipyridine complexes to size-controlled nickel nanoparticles

Tris(bipyridine)nickel(II) chloride (1) and bis(bipyridine)nickel(II) chloride (2) pyrolize at heating rate of 50 °C/min to a maximum of 450 °C for 24 h under an inert atmosphere of flowing argon gas, to yield size-controlled nickel nanoparticles. Thermogravimetric studies of the complexes (1) and (2) and GC–MS analysis of the trapped volatile matter evolved during thermal degradation of the complexes indicate their clean decomposition pathway to zero-valent nickel. Both heating rate and argon gas flow rate affect purity, particle size, and shape of the particles. X-ray powder diffractometry and atomic force microscopy showed the formation of face-centered cubic (fcc) structured nickel particles having particle size in the range of 3.5–5.0 nm. Magnetic susceptibility measurements suggest nickel nanoparticles to be ferromagnetic in nature characterized by particle size–dependent Curie temperature and high coercivity that is comparable to the bulk iron.     

Characterization and differentiation of iron ores using X-ray diffractometry,k0 instrumental neutron activation analysis and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry

This study was aimed at developing methodology for the characterization and differentiation of iron ores from different ore deposits. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) was used for the determination of major and minor chemical phases in the ores, k₀-instrumental neutron activation analysis (k₀-INAA) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) were employed for the determination of elemental profiles of iron ores. The quality of the ores was evaluated to establish their suitability to serve as a raw material for iron production. Principal component analysis was performed on the elemental data for the classification of ores. It was also shown that ores can be differentiated on the basis of rare earth elemental profiles. In this paper a new indicator, based on four elements (Ca, S, Sb, Yb), was proposed for the classification.

     

Micellization of Cationic Surfactant Cetyltrimethylammonium Bromide in Mixed Water-Alcohol Media

The effect of methanol, ethanol, and 1-propanol on cmc and degree of counter ion binding, β, of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) has been studied conductometrically. The micellization of CTAB in these water-alcohol media have been found to be both dependent on nature as well as the concentration of alcohol in water. The cmc values shift toward higher concentration with increase in alcoholic content up to certain concentration beyond which decrease in cmc is registered in case of all the alcohols. However, the maximum in the cmc versus concentration of alcohol shifts to lower concentration with the increase in number of carbons in alcohol. β shows the inverse peaked behaviour in conformity with the cmc variation. The effects viz. solvent modifying tendency of alcohols and their tendency of penetration into the micelles have been used to interpret their effect on micellization of CTAB.