ChemInform Abstract: An ab initio Study of Possible Pathways in the Thermal Decomposition of NaAlH4

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 200 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.     

A modified rheometer for in-situ radial and tangential SAXS studies on shear-induced alignment

A tooth rheometer designed to investigate the influence of large amplitude oscillatory shear on the macroscopic orientation of complex fluids is described. The rheometer allows in-situ two-directional small-angle scattering measurements, making it possible to observe in particular the orientation process of hierarchically structured block copolymers in dynamics. Experiments performed with a linear poly(vinyl methyl ether) show that, despite a considerable gap/width ratio, the rheometer can be used for adequate rheological measurements. In addition we found an unexpected dependence of the dynamic parameters on the rheometer gap. The small amount of sample required favors the use of this rheometer for measuring the rheological characteristics of new compounds.     

Selector for structural isomers of neutral molecules

We have selected and spatially separated the two conformers of 3-aminophenol (C(6)H(7)NO) present in a molecular beam. Analogous to the separation of ions based on their mass-to-charge ratios in a quadrupole mass filter, the neutral conformers are separated based on their different mass-to-dipole-moment ratios in an ac electric quadrupole selector. For a given ac frequency, the individual conformers experience different focusing forces, resulting in different transmissions through the selector. These experiments demonstrate that conformer-selected samples of large molecules can be prepared, offering new possibilities for the study of gas-phase biomolecules.     

Experimental study of the retention properties of a cyclo olefin polymer pillar array column in reversed-phase mode

Experimental measurements to study the retention capacity and band broadening under retentive conditions using micromachined non-porous pillar array columns fabricated in cyclo olefin polymer are presented. In particular, three columns with different depths but with the same pillar structure have been fabricated via hot embossing and pressure-assisted thermal bonding. Separations of a mixture of four coumarins using varying mobile phase compositions have been monitored to study the relation between the retention factor and the ratio of organic solvent in the aqueous mobile phase. Moreover, the linear relation between the retention and the surface/volume ratio predicted in theory has been observed, achieving retention factors up to k=2.5. Under the same retentive conditions, minimal reduced plate height values of h(min)=0.4 have been obtained at retention factors of k=1.2. These experimental results are compared with the case of non-porous and porous silicon pillars. Similar results for the plate heights are achieved while retention factors are higher than the non-porous silicon column and considerably smaller than the porous pillar column, given the non-porous nature of the used cyclo olefin polymer. The feasibility of using this polymer column as an alternative to the pillar array silicon columns is corroborated.