Influence of the Nanoscale Morphology on the Photovoltaic Properties of Fullerene/MEH-PPV Composites

The relation between morphology and photoelectric properties of PPV derivatives/fullerene composites forming bulk heterojunction solar cells has been investigated. The solvent used to spin cast the photoactive layers has a main influence on the quenching of the MEH-PPV fluorescence, which could be attributed to different dispersion abilities of C₆₀ in the polymer layer shown by AFM microscopy. Formation of large fullerene aggregates is observed at fullerene concentrations of the order of 10% leading to phase separation for composite layers processed in THF, whereas more dispersed distributions of fullerenes are observed in an aromatic solvent like ODCB which accounts for a more efficient luminescence quenching with increasing filler concentrations. However the improvement of the dissociation of photogenerated charge pairs is counterbalanced by a less efficient charge transport in the composite shown by lower short circuit currents probably due to unfavorable polymer chain arrangement in ODCB. Thin film processing conditions have been modified by the preparation of blends of solutions of the polymer in THF and fullerene in ODCB. The resulting spin casted layers show improved morphologies implying better dispersion of the fullerenes and increased short circuit currents. The improvement of the photovoltaic properties of the MEH-PPV/C₆₀ composites has been attributed to the nanosized fullerene domains formed upon phase separation.     

Reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of lansoprazole, omeprazole and pantoprazole sodium sesquihydrate in presence of their Acid-induced degradation products

A simple sensitive, selective and accurate reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated for the quantitative determination of lansoprazole, omeprazole and pantoprazole sodium sesquishydrate in the presence of their acid-induced degradation products. The three compounds were monitored at 280 nm using Nova-Pak C(18) column and a mobile phase consisting of 0.05 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate : methanol : acetonitrile (5 : 3 : 2 v/v/v). Linearity ranges were 2-20 mug ml(-1), 2-36 mug ml(-1) and 0.5-20 mug ml(-1) for lansoprazole, omeprazole and pantoprazole, respectively. The corresponding recoveries were 100.61+/-0.84%, 100.50+/-0.80% and 99.78+/-0.88%. The minimum detection limits were 0.55, 0.54 and 0.03 mug ml(-1) for lansoprazole, omeprazole and pantoprazole, respectively. The method could be successfully applied to the determination of pure, laboratory prepared mixtures and pharmaceutical dosage forms. The results obtained were compared with the reported methods for lansoprazole and pantoprazole or the official U.S.P method for omeprazole.     

A Case Study in the Chemical Engineering Freshman Course Using Enhanced Excel with Visual Basic and Power Point

A multicomponent gas-liquid system was considered as a case study project for the course Elementary Principles of Chemical Engineering. In this case study, students were responsible for preparing and using the graphical representation of vapor-liquid equilibrium (T_xy diagrams) for a variety of systems and conditions. The solution to this problem is designed as an interactive program utilizing Enhanced Excel, Visual Basic, and PowerPoint. Using a combination of these three software components necessitated the submission of the solution on a computer disk. Submitting only a printout of the same solution may not capture all of the information that is displayed when using generated events from interacting with the various software modules. By using Excel, freshman students can perform a what-if-analysis for which the problems solution is sought, with minimum efforts. Furthermore, students will have a decent exposure to the chemical engineering process considered for this case study. Moreover, Excel spreadsheets are useful and easier to modify for parametric studies on the overall process than any other computational tool or program.     

Synthesis,spectroscopic characterization and in vitro antitumour activity of di-n-butyltin and diethyltin trimethoxybenzoates: X-ray structure analysis of bis[di-n-butyl(3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoato)tin] oxide

Di-n-butyltin(IV) and diethyltin(IV) 2,3,4-, 2,4,5- and 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoates [(CH₃O)₃C₆H₂COO]₂SnR [Type a] and {[(CH₃O)₃C₆H₂COO]R₂Sn}₂O [Type b] have been synthesized and characterized spectroscopically. The crystal structure of bis[di-n-butyl(3,4,5- trimethoxybenzoato)tin] oxide has been determined. The triclinic unit cell contains one centrosymmetric dimer; a = 15.919(2) Å, b = 11.711(3) Å, c = 13.475(1) Å, and α = 63.63(2)°, β = 67.49(1)°, γ = 76.61(2)°. The geometry of the dimer is very similar to that of bis[di-n-butyl(5-methoxysalicylatotin] oxide), with two different types of five-coordinate tin atoms and one central planar Sn₂O₂ ring.     

Cerium (III) doping effects on optical and thermal properties of PVA films

Cerium chloride (CeCl₃) doped polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films were prepared by casting technique. The effect of CeCl₃ concentrations on the structural, optical and thermal properties of the PVA films was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FT-IR, UV-visible, transmittance (T), reflectance (R), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry (TG). Both of the XRD and the DSC results affirm the increase in amorphousity. Absorption spectra of the doped films have shown an absorption band at 260 nm assigned to the trivalent state of cerium ions. Absorption, transmittance and reflectance spectra were used for the determination of the optical constants. The results indicate that the optical band gap (E_g) was derived from Tauc's extrapolation and decreases with the cerium content. The refractive index increases with monotonic behavior as the cerium content increases. The dispersion of the refractive index is discussed in terms of the single-oscillator Wemple–DiDomernico model for obtaining the dispersion parameters. The obtained optical parameters were found to be strongly affected by CeCl₃ dopant. Thermal analysis showed that the thermal parameters of PVA are enhanced by CeCl₃. The dependence of the activation energy of the decomposition temperature on doping level was estimated.     

REACTIONS WITH 2-THIOHYDANTOIN DERIVATIVES: SYNTHESIS OF MANNICH BASES AND IMIDAZOTHIAZOLE DERIVATIVES

Abstract

5-Arylidene-2-thiohydantoins (la-c) and 5-arylazo-1-phenyl-2-thiohydantoins (7a, b) were condensed with formaldehyde and primary or secondary aromatic amines to give the corresponding Mannich bases (2a-f) and (8a, b) respectively, which could also be converted into the educts (la-c) and (7a, b) by boiling in ethanolic HCI. On treatment of (2a-f), (5a-c) and (8a, b) with an ethereal diazomethane the colourless cyclopropane products (3a-c) and yellow N-methyl substituted compounds (9, b) were isolated respectively. Alkylation of (2d-f) with methyl iodide and (la-e) with 3-chloropentane-2,4 dione gave the corresponding 2-alkylmercapto derivatives (5a-c) and (2a-c) respectively, the former of which on hydrolysis by boiling ethanolic HCI afforded the hydantoin derivatives (6a-c). Cyclization of (12a-c) using polyphosphoric acid resulted in the formation of imidazothiazole derivatives (13a-c). The structure of the isolated products were established by elemental analyses and spectral data studies.     

Influence of the semiconductor/metal rear contact on the performance of n(a-Si:H)/i(a-Si:H)/p(c-Si) heterojunction solar cells

The aim of this work is to analyze on the results of using of Al/Ag layer as a rear contact to improve the performance of heterojunction silicon solar cells. An analytical method is presented to extract the physical parameters of the equivalent circuit. These parameters are extracted to simulate the I(V) characteristic of heterojunction silicon solar cells, with Al and Al/Ag rear-metal contact. A good agreement between our analytical method and experimental measurement of electrical characteristics is obtained which show clearly how the Al/Ag rear contact can improve the characteristics of silicon solar cells. The influence of the rear-metal contact on the performance of the c-Si(p)-based bifacial HIT solar cell, i.e., the ZnO/Al/a-Si:H(n)/a-Si:H(i)/c-Si(p)/metal solar cell, is investigated in detail by computer simulation using the AFORS-HET software. Accordingly, the design optimization of the bifacial HIT solar cells on c-Si(p) substrates is provided. These simulation show an optimal conversion efficiency of 23% when the rear-metal contact is perfectly ohmic.     

Conception and Evaluation of a Library of Cleavable Mass Tags for Digital Polymers Sequencing

A library of phosphoramidite monomers containing a main-chain cleavable alkoxyamine and a side-chain substituent of variable molar mass (i.e. mass tag) was prepared in this work. These monomers can be used in automated solid-phase phosphoramidite chemistry and therefore incorporated periodically as spacers inside digitally-encoded poly(phosphodiester) chains. Consequently, the formed polymers contain tagged cleavable sites that guide their fragmentation in mass spectrometry sequencing and enhance their digital readability. The spacers were all prepared via a seven steps synthetic procedure. They were afterwards tested for the synthesis and sequencing of model digital polymers. Uniform digitally-encoded polymers were obtained as major species in all cases, even though some minor defects were sometimes detected. Furthermore, the polymers were decoded in pseudo-MS³ conditions, thus confirming the reliability and versatility of the spacers library.     

Numerical approximation of the optimal control of a population dynamics model

In this paper, we present a numerical approach to an inverse problem of a population dynamics model. We propose a numerical approximation of the optimal control for obtaining the desired observation state using the augmented Lagrangian method. Moreover, the existence and uniqueness of the numerical solutions are mathematically investigated in this work. Finally, we present some numerical experiments to illustrate our theoretical results.