Cross-linking of Polymer of Intrinsic Microporosity (PIM-1) via nitrene reaction and its effect on gas transport property

Polymer of Intrinsic Microporosity (i.e. PIM-1) has been crosslinked thermally via nitrene reaction using polyethylene glycol biazide (PEG-biazide) as a crosslinker. The crosslinking temperature was optimized using TGA coupled with FT-IR spectroscopy. The dense membranes containing different ratios of PIM-1 to PEG-biazide were cast from chloroform solution. Crosslinking of PIM-1 renders it insoluble even in excellent solvents for the uncrosslinked polymer. The resulting crosslinked membranes were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, TGA and gel content analysis. The influence of crosslinker content on the gas transport properties of PIM-1, its density and fractional free volume (FFV) were investigated. Compared to the pure PIM-1 membrane, the crosslinked PIM-1 membranes showed better gas separation performance especially for CO₂/N₂, CO₂/CH₄ and propylene/propane (C₃H₆/C₃H₈) gas pairs and as well as suppressed penetrant-induced plasticization under high CO₂ pressure.     

Carbon nanotube-chitosan modified disposable pencil graphite electrode for vitamin B12 analysis

A single walled carbon nanotube-chitosan (SWCNT-chitosan) modified disposable pencil graphite electrode (PGE) was used in this study for the electrochemical detection of Vitamin B(12). Electrochemical behaviors of SWCNT-chitosan PGE and chitosan modified PGE were compared by using cyclic voltammetry (CV), square-wave voltammetry (SWV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. SWCNT-chitosan modified electrode was also used for the quantification of Vitamin B(12) in pharmaceutical products. The results show that this electrode system is suitable for sensitive Vitamin B(12) analysis giving good recovery results. The surface morphologies of the SWCNT-chitosan PGE, chitosan modified PGE and unmodified PGE were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).     

Muscle skin temperature responses for hamstring and quadriceps to aerobic and anaerobic test conditions in Turkish Olympic Sailing Athletes

Olympic class sailing is a competitive sport and requires several abilities. An understanding of the responses to aerobic and anaerobic loading will be useful for assessing the training programs, protective strategies and possibility of injuries. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine lower extremity main muscles skin temperature responses to aerobic and anaerobic test conditions in Turkish Olympic Sailing Athletes. Eighteen sailing athletes were assessed during preseasonal assessment period. Temperatures of quadriceps and hamstring muscle groups were evaluated bilaterally during rest and after Wingate Treadmill tests. Wingate test was accepted as an indicator of anaerobic performance and Treadmill test as an aerobic performance. Infrared thermography was performed to assess the skin temperature at anterior and posterior parts of thigh for both legs. In the triplicate comparison, the temperature changes between the rest, aerobic test and anaerobic test conditions were significant (p?<?0.05). In the analysis to determine the difference between the compared groups; for both muscle groups, temperature change after anaerobic performance was not significant; in contrast to this result the change in muscle temperature after aerobic performance was significant (p?<?0.05). Energetic—metabolic activity of major muscle groups of lower extremities during aerobic and anaerobic performance are important for injury prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and return to play. Present study shows that aerobic performance or activities requires higher energetic-metabolic activity.

     

Conservation laws and double reduction of (2+1) dimensional Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff equation

In this paper, we obtain conservation laws of (2+1) dimensional Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff equation by non‐local conservation theorem method. Besides, exact solutions are obtained by the aid of the symmetries associated with conservation laws. Double reduction is used to obtain these exact solution of Calogero–Bogoyavlenskii–Schiff equation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New potential humic acid stationary phase toward drug components: Development of a chemometric‐assisted RP‐HPLC method for the determination of paracetamol and caffeine in tablet formulations

A new humic acid based stationary phase has been used, for the first time, to achieve the separation and quantification of paracetamol and caffeine in pharmaceutical preparations under reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography conditions. Central composite design was applied as a powerful tool to optimize the most dominant parameters that influence the resolution of reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography, that is, mobile phase composition (acetonitrile percentage in water), flow rate, and column temperature. The optimum conditions were obtained as 21.69%, 1.5 mL/min, and 15°C, respectively, with the aid of a second‐order quadratic model and desirability function. Under the optimum conditions, the peaks could be baseline separated within 10 min. For the developed reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography method, the linearity was investigated in the concentration ranges of 2–160 mg/mL (R² = 0.999) for paracetamol and 2–9.9 mg/mL (R² = 0.991) for caffeine. Mean recoveries for paracetamol and caffeine were 95.90 and 95.68%, respectively. The limits of detection and quantification were 4.1 × 10^‐4 and 1.3 × 10^‐3 mg/mL for paracetamol and 1.6 × 10^‐4 and 5.0 × 10^‐4 mg/mL for caffeine. The results showed that the new humic acid based stationary phase is very suitable for the separation of paracetamol and caffeine in pharmaceutical preparations and, thus it can be used effectively in the pharmaceutical industry.     

Application of adapted homotopy perturbation method for approximate solution of Henon‐Heiles system

We performed adapted homotopy perturbation method on the Henon‐Heiles system with the help of the symbolic computation of package Maple 10 (User Manual by Maplesoft. www.maplesoft.com ). We obtained a new approximate solution of the Henon‐Heiles system. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

Derivation of Korteweg–de Vries flow equations from modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation

We perform a multiple scales analysis on the modified nonlinear Schrödinger (MNLS) equation in the Hamiltonian form. We derive, as amplitude equations, Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) flow equations in the bi-Hamiltonian form.     

Three dimensional dynamics of pretwisted beams: A spectral-Tchebychev solution

This paper presents the application of the spectral-Tchebychev (ST) technique for solution of three-dimensional dynamics of unconstrained pretwisted beams with general cross-section (including both straight and curved cross-sections). In general, the dynamic response of pretwisted beams presents three-dimensional (3D) motions, including coupled bending–bending–torsional–axial motions. As such, accurately solving pretwisted beam dynamics requires a 3D solution approach. In this work, the integral boundary value problem based on the 3D linear elasticity equations is solved numerically using the 3D-ST approach. To simplify evaluation of the volume integrals, the boundaries are simplified by applying two coordinate transformations to render the pretwisted beam with curved cross-section into an equivalent straight beam with rectangular cross-section. Three sample pretwisted beam problems with rectangular, curved, and airfoil cross-sections at different twist rates are solved using the presented approach. In each case, the convergence of the solution is analyzed, and non-dimensional natural frequencies and mode shapes are compared to those from a finite-element (FE) solution. Furthermore, cross-sectional stress and displacements are obtained from the 3D-ST solution. Lastly, the non-dimensional natural frequencies from the 3D-ST and a 1D/2D solutions are compared. It is concluded that the 3D-ST solution can capture the three-dimensional dynamic behavior of pretwisted beams as accurately as an FE solution, but for a fraction of the computational cost. Furthermore, it is shown that 1D/2D solution can lead to significant errors at high twist rates, and thus, the 3D-ST solution should be preferred.     

Correlation of gas permeation and free volume in new and used high free volume thin film composite membranes

Polymeric gas separation membranes frequently undergo the phenomenon of aging, that is, performance parameters like permeability decrease with storage or usage time. Here, we report on a new approach of reducing aging by incorporation of functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes into a polymer of intrinsic microporosity. Free volume and permeability measurements clearly show a reduced aging with incorporation of the carbon nantubes. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 213–217