The four-electron diamagnetic ring current of porphycene

Porphycene, an isomer that can replace porphin in chemical and biochemical contexts, is predicted by ab initio calculation to exhibit a global diatropic pi ring current with bifurcation across the four pyrrole units of the macrocycle. Analysis of the orbital contributions to the current density in porphycene reveals that the global current, with its bifurcation feature, is attributable to the four electrons of the near-degenerate HOMO levels, the same set of active electrons that feature in the well-known four-orbital model of the electronic spectra of porphyrins. Integration of the current density gives 1H, 13C and 15N NMR shieldings that are compatible with the observed low-field shifts of peripheral and bridge protons and high-field shift of the internal NH protons, assignment of the 13C NMR spectrum and the single average 15N chemical shift resulting from rapid NH tautomerism. Geometries were calculated with the DFT B3LYP functional, the current density maps were calculated with the ipsocentric coupled-Hartree-Fock CTOCD-DZ method, and the shieldings with the CTOCD-PZ2 variant, all in the same 6-31G** basis.     

Evidence for changing of cosmic ray composition between 10(17) and 10(18) eV from multicomponent measurements

The average mass composition of cosmic rays with primary energies between 10(17) and 10(18) eV has been studied using a hybrid detector consisting of the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) prototype and the MIA muon array. Measurements have been made of the change in the depth of shower maximum and the muon density as a function of energy. The results show that the composition is changing from a heavy to lighter mix as the energy increases.     

On the role of the microporous layer in PEMFC operation

The condition of liquid water breakthrough at the cathode of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFC) is studied experimentally and data on corresponding water saturation and capillary pressure are provided for gas diffusion layers (GDL) with and without a microporous layer (MPL). The data demonstrate that the GDL saturation at water breakthrough is drastically reduced from ca. 25% to ca. 5% in the presence of MPL. This observation is consistent with considerations of invasion percolation in finite-size lattices and suggests an explanation for the role of MPL in improving PEMFC performance at high current densities.     

Hyperfine field and electric quadrupole interaction of51V in YFe2 and HoFe2

Spin echo measurements were made on Y(Fe_0.99V_0.01)₂, (Y_0.97Ho_0.03) (Fe_0.99V_0.01)₂ and Ho(Fe_0.96 V_0.04)₂ compounds. The addition of Ho to YFe₂ causes a spin reorientation from <111> to <100> but this is not reflected in the⁸⁹Y or⁵¹V hyperfine fields. A well resolved⁵¹V NMR line was observed at 51.5 MHz and 60.0 MHz respectively for Y and Ho Laves compounds but with no evidence of quadrupole satellites. Small quadrupole splittings ¦2P_t¦ = 171 ±5 kHz and 178 ±5 kHz respectively for Y and Ho compounds were deduced from the oscillatory decay of the⁵¹V spin echo after a two pulse sequence.On leave from Department of Physics, University College, The University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Campbell, ACT, Australia.     

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Implications of the solvent effect in quantitative capillary gas chromatography of minor constituents in mixtures—a study using deuterium labeled and unlabeled benzofluoranthenes

Perdeuterated benzofluoranthenes have slightly shorter retention times than their equivalent unlabeled forms in a DB-5 capillary column. Under column overload conditions, perdeuterated benzofluoranthenes in moderate multifold excesses, which might be encountered in their use as internal standards and carriers for quantitative analysis, are seen to exhibit both normal and reverse solvent effects on their close eluting congeners. In some cases the effects may be used to advantage by knowledgeable analysts, but for the ignorant and unwary the effects can lead to serious errors in identification and quantification.     

Valence‐to‐core X‐ray emission spectroscopy of titanium compounds using energy dispersive detectors

X‐ray emission spectroscopy (XES) of transition metal compounds is a powerful tool for investigating the spin and oxidation state of the metal centers. Valence‐to‐core (vtc) XES is of special interest, as it contains information on the ligand nature, hybridization, and protonation. To date, most vtc‐XES studies have been performed with high‐brightness sources, such as synchrotrons, due to the weak fluorescence lines from vtc transitions. Here, we present a systematic study of the vtc‐XES for different titanium compounds in a laboratory setting using an X‐ray tube source and energy dispersive microcalorimeter sensors. With a full‐width at half‐maximum energy resolution of approximately 4 eV at the Ti Kβ lines, we measure the XES features of different titanium compounds and compare our results for the vtc line shapes and energies to previously published and newly acquired synchrotron data as well as to new theoretical calculations. Finally, we report simulations of the feasibility of performing time‐resolved vtc‐XES studies with a laser‐based plasma source in a laboratory setting. Our results show that microcalorimeter sensors can already perform high‐quality measurements of vtc‐XES features in a laboratory setting under static conditions and that dynamic measurements will be possible in the future after reasonable technological developments.     

Rapid fabrication of glass/PDMS hybrid µIMER for high throughput membrane proteomics

Mass spectrometry (MS) based proteomics has brought a radical approach to systems biology, offering a platform to study complex biological functions. However, key proteomic technical challenges remain, mainly the inability to characterise the complete proteome of a cell due to the thousands of diverse, complex proteins expressed at an extremely wide concentration range. Currently, high throughput and efficient techniques to unambiguously identify and quantify proteins on a proteome-wide scale are in demand. Miniaturised analytical systems placed upstream of MS help us to attain these goals. One time-consuming step in traditional techniques is the in-solution digestion of proteins (4-20 h). This also has other drawbacks, including enzyme autoproteolysis, low efficiency, and manual operation. Furthermore, the identification of α-helical membrane proteins has remained a challenge due to their high hydrophobicity and lack of trypsin cleavage targets in transmembrane helices. We demonstrate a new rapidly produced glass/PDMS micro Immobilised Enzyme Reactor (μIMER) with enzymes covalently immobilised onto polyacrylic acid plasma-modified surfaces for the purpose of rapidly (as low as 30 s) generating peptides suitable for MS analysis. This μIMER also allows, for the first time, rapid digestion of insoluble proteins. Membrane protein identification through this method was achieved after just 4 min digestion time, up to 9-fold faster than either dual-stage in-solution digestion approaches or other commonly used bacterial membrane proteomic workflows.