Fascinating and challenging role of tungstate promoted vanadium phosphate towards solvent free esterification of oleic acid

A novel solid acid catalyst has been extensively used for the esterification reaction. Herein, tungstate promoted vanadium phosphate material is fabricated from its precursor, VOHPO(4)·0.5H(2)O and its catalytic activities and structure are investigated in detail. This kind of catalyst is, for the first time, applied for the effective production of biodiesel from fatty acids. Although vanadium phosphate has been extensively used in gas phase oxidation reactions, it has not drawn much attention for its application in liquid phase reactions. Our recent results indicate that vanadium phosphate is an effective, minimally polluting and re-usable catalyst that is highly suited to the production of biodiesel from fatty acids. This work extends the possibility of using VPO in other liquid phase reactions.     

Recent progress in the development of carbonate-intercalated Zn/Cr LDH as a novel photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution aimed at the utilization of solar light

A series of novel photocatalysts Zn/Cr LDH with different Zn/Cr molar ratios (2?:?1, 3?:?1, 4?:?1 and 2?:?1-CO(3)) were fabricated by a co-precipitation method and evaluated for photodecomposition of water using visible light irradiation. Various characterization methods were employed to investigate the structures, morphologies and photocatalytic properties. In comparison to Zn/Cr (2?:?1) LDH, Zn/Cr-CO(3) (2?:?1) LDH extends the absorption edges to the visible region and exhibits good photocatalytic activity, even without the assistance of co-catalysts. The visible light photocatalytic activity is ascribed to the charge transfer spectra of octahedral Cr ions in LDH. Zn/Cr-CO(3) LDH shows enhanced photocatalytic activities compared to Zn/Cr LDH as carbonate ions oxidise by holes to form carbonate radicals, inhibit the rapid recombination of e(-) and h(+) charge carriers and thereby suppress the backward reaction to some extent. This work provides a detailed understanding of the semiconductor properties of LDHs for photocatalytical hydrogen evolution.     

Structure determination of a membrane protein in proteoliposomes

An NMR method for determining the three-dimensional structures of membrane proteins in proteoliposomes is demonstrated by determining the structure of MerFt, the 60-residue helix-loop-helix integral membrane core of the 81-residue mercury transporter MerF. The method merges elements of oriented sample (OS) solid-state NMR and magic angle spinning (MAS) solid-state NMR techniques to measure orientation restraints relative to a single external axis (the bilayer normal) from individual residues in a uniformly (13)C/(15)N labeled protein in unoriented liquid crystalline phospholipid bilayers. The method relies on the fast (>10(5) Hz) rotational diffusion of membrane proteins in bilayers to average the static chemical shift anisotropy and heteronuclear dipole-dipole coupling powder patterns to axially symmetric powder patterns with reduced frequency spans. The frequency associated with the parallel edge of such motionally averaged powder patterns is exactly the same as that measured from the single line resonance in the spectrum of a stationary sample that is macroscopically aligned parallel to the direction of the applied magnetic field. All data are collected on unoriented samples undergoing MAS. Averaging of the homonuclear (13)C/(13)C dipolar couplings, by MAS of the sample, enables the use of uniformly (13)C/(15)N labeled proteins, which provides enhanced sensitivity through direct (13)C detection as well as the use of multidimensional MAS solid-state NMR methods for resolving and assigning resonances. The unique feature of this method is the measurement of orientation restraints that enable the protein structure and orientation to be determined in unoriented proteoliposomes.     

Radiative see-saw formula in nonsupersymmetric SO(10) with dark matter

In SO(10), the type-I and type-II see-saw scales ???10¹² GeV are far away from being probed by direct experimental tests. In the absence of supersymmetry, we show how experimentally verifiable radiative see-saw formula of Ma type is realized in non-SUSY SO(10) while fulfilling the twin objectives: precision gauge coupling unification and dark matter. This model is expected to have a dramatic impact on neutrino physics, dark matter and all fermion masses and mixings.     

Casimir-Lifshitz quantum state of superhydrophobic black-silicon surfaces manufactured by a metal-assisted hierarchical nano-microtexturing process

We investigated superhydrophobic Si nanosurfaces similar to the lotus leaf by performing a hierarchical nanotexturing process on micropyramidal Si surfaces. The process was carried out using a metal-assisted chemical etching process based upon the deposition of Ag nanoparticles. The hierarchical micro-nanosurfaces showed a superhydrophobic character with contact angles of approximately 134～150°. The photon tunnelling also provides a strong light absorption as a black Si. The surface-light emission from broad and sharp photoluminescence was observed in the wavelength ranges of 414.7～440 and 509～516.2?nm. The field-induced tunnelling current on nanosurface shows the formation of quantum surface states. From the analyses of Casimir-Lifshitz quantum state of a photon in vacuum, the superhydrophobic behaviour of water droplet is closely related to the nanosurface and the nanoporous cavity shows the absorption of terahertz energy. Si nanosurface shows the broadband absorption in the spectral range of 800～900 cm^?1 corresponding to the energy range of 99.2～111.6?meV with 24～27 THz.     

Study on electro-magnetic properties of La substituted Ni–Cu–Zn ferrite synthesized by auto-combustion method

(Ni_0.25Cu_0.20Zn_0.55)La_xFe_2−xO₄ ferrite with x=0.00, 0.025, 0.050 and 0.075 compositions were synthesized through nitrate–citrate auto-combustion method. Crystalline spinel ferrite phase with about 16–19 nm crystallite size was present in the as-burnt ferrite powder. These powders were calcined, compacted and sintered at 950 °C for 4 h. Initial permeability, magnetic loss and AC resistivity of different compositions were measured in the frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 MHz. Saturation magnetization and hysteresis parameters were measured at room temperature with a maximum magnetic field of 10 kOe. Permeability and AC resistivity were found to increase and magnetic loss decreased with La substitution for Fe, up to x=0.025. Saturation magnetization and coercive field also increases up to that limit. The electromagnetic properties were found best in the ferrite composition of x=0.025, which would be better for more miniaturized multi layer chip inductor.     

Local charge compensation in the quark-cascade jet-production model

The charge correlations and the local charge compensation mechanism in rapidity space for quark jets are analysed in the framework of the quark-cascade jet-production model. The calculated results are compared with those observed experimentally in antineutrino-nucleon processes, and for the short range charge correlations observed ine ⁺ e ⁻ annihilation experiments. The results appear consistent with the quark-cascade model. The treatment of Snider (1975) is essentially based on Chew and Pignotti (1968). Pinskyet al (1973) showed the similarity of multiperipheral and Muller-Regge concepts.     

Working group report: Neutrino and astroparticle physics

This is the report of neutrino and astroparticle physics working group at WHEPP-8. We present the discussions carried out during the workshop on selected topics in the above fields and also indicate progress made subsequently. The neutrino physics subgroup studied the possibilities of constraining neutrino masses, mixing and CPT violation in lepton sector from future experiments. Neutrino mass models in the context of Abelian horizontal symmetries, warped extra dimensions and in the presence of triplet Higgs were studied. Effect of threshold corrections on radiative magnification of mixing angles was investigated. The astroparticle physics subgroup focused on how various particle physics inputs affect the CMBR fluctuation spectrum, and on brane cosmology. This report also contains an introduction on how to use the publicly available code CMBFAST to calculate the CMBR fluctuations.