Indirect simultaneous kinetic determination of semicarbazide and hydrazine in micellar media by H-point standard addition method

H-point standard addition method (HPSAM) is suggested as a simple and selective method for the determination of semicarbazide and hydrazine. The reduction of Cu²⁺ to Cu⁺ by semicarbazide and hydrazine in the presence of neocuproine (Nc) and the subsequent complex formation between Cu⁺ and Nc produced a sensitive spectrophotometric method for indirect determination of semicarbazide and hydrazine. The difference in the rate of reduction of Cu²⁺ with semicarbazide and hydrazine in cationic micellar media is the basis of this method. Semicarbazide can be determined in the range of 0.5-3.75 μg ml⁻¹ with satisfactory accuracy and precision in the presence of excess hydrazine. The proposed method was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of semicarbazide (0.5-3.75 μg ml⁻¹) and hydrazine (0.5-5 μg ml⁻¹) and also to the selective determination of semicarbazide in the presence of hydrazine in several synthetic mixtures containing different concentration ratios of semicarbazide and hydrazine.     

Strong Structural and Electronic Binding of Bovine Serum Albumin to ZnO via Specific Amino Acid Residues and Zinc Atoms

ZnO biointerfaces with serum albumin have attracted noticeable attention due to the increasing interest in developing ZnO-based materials for biomedical applications. ZnO surface morphology and chemistry are expected to play a critical role on the structural, optical, and electronic properties of albumin-ZnO complexes. Yet there are still large gaps in the understanding of these biological interfaces. Herein we comprehensively elucidate the interactions at such interfaces by using atomic force microscopy and nanoshaving experiments to determine roughness, thickness, and adhesion properties of BSA layers adsorbed on the most typical polar and non-polar ZnO single-crystal facets. These experiments are corroborated by force field (FF) and density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) calculations on ZnO-BSA interfaces. We show that BSA adsorbs on all the studied ZnO surfaces while interactions of BSA with ZnO are found to be considerably affected by the atomic surface structure of ZnO. BSA layers on the surface have the highest roughness and thickness, hinting at a specific upright BSA arrangement. BSA layers on surface have the strongest binding, which is well correlated with DFTB simulations showing atomic rearrangement and bonding between specific amino acids (AAs) and ZnO. Besides the structural properties, the ZnO interaction with these AAs also controls the charge transfer and HOMO-LUMO energy positions in the BSA-ZnO complexes. This ZnO facet-specific protein binding and related structural and electronic effects can be useful for improving the design and functionality of ZnO-based materials and devices.     

Simultaneous determination of Fe(II) and Fe(III) by kinetic spectrophotometric H-point standard addition method

The H-point standard addition method (HPSAM) for simultaneous determination of Fe(II) and Fe(III) is described. The method is based on the difference in the rate of complex formation of iron in two different oxidation states with Gallic acid (GA) at pH 5. Fe(II) and Fe(III) can be determined in the range of 0.02–4.50 μg ml⁻¹ and 0.05–5.00 μg ml⁻¹, respectively, with satisfactory accuracy and precision in the presence of other metal ions, which rapidly form complexes with GA under working conditions. The proposed method was successfully applied for simultaneous determination of Fe(II) and Fe(III) in several environmental and synthetic samples with different concentration ratios of Fe(II) and Fe(III).     

Host–Guest Assembly of a Molecular Reporter with Chiral Cyanohydrins for Assignment of Absolute Stereochemistry

The absolute stereochemistry of cyanohydrins, derived from ketones and aldehydes, is obtained routinely, in a microscale and derivatization‐free manner, upon their complexation with Zn‐MAPOL, a zincated porphyrin host with a binding pocket comprised of a biphenol core. The host–guest complex leads to observable exciton‐coupled circular dichroism (ECCD), the sign of which is easily correlated to the absolute stereochemistry of the bound cyanohydrin. A working model, based on the ECCD signal of cyanohydrins with known configuration, is proposed.     

Investigation of the Electroreduction Behavior,Electroreduction Mechanism and Voltammetric Determination of Medetomidine on the Graphene Paste Electrode

This paper presents a method for the construction of a graphene paste electrode (GPE) from reduced graphene oxide (RGO). The GPE was successfully used for the determination of medetomidine. The influence of some experimental variables such as pH, supporting electrolyte, scan rate, and possible interferences were studied. Differential pulse voltammetric (DPV) peak currents of medetomidine increased linearly with its concentration in the range from 0.009 to 2.5 µM. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) values for the determination of medetomidine were 2.8 and 9.2 nM, respectively. Also, for the first time, the electroreduction behavior of medetomidine was investigated.     

Carbon dots with strong excitation-dependent fluorescence changes towards pH. Application as nanosensors for a broad range of pH

In this study, preparation of novel pH-sensitive N-doped carbon dots (NCDs) using glucose and urea is reported. The prepared NCDs present strong excitation-dependent fluorescence changes towards the pH that is a new behavior from these nanomaterials. By taking advantage of this unique behavior, two separated ratiometric pH sensors using emission spectra of the NCDs for both acidic (pH 2.0 to 8.0) and basic (pH 7.0 to 14.0) ranges of pH are constructed. Additionally, by considering the entire Excitation–Emission Matrix (EEM) of NCDs as analytical signal and using a suitable multivariate calibration method, a broad range of pH from 2.0 to 14.0 was well calibrated. The multivariate calibration method was independent from the concentration of NCDs and resulted in a very low average prediction error of 0.067 pH units. No changes in the predicted pH under UV irradiation (for 3 h) and at high ionic strength (up to 2 M NaCl) indicated the high stability of this pH nanosensor. The practicality of this pH nanosensor for pH determination in real water samples was validated with good accuracy and repeatability.     

Electrochemical platform for simultaneous determination of levodopa,acetaminophen and tyrosine using a graphene and ferrocene modified carbon paste electrode

Microchimica Acta - A carbon paste electrode (CPE) was modified with graphene and ethyl 2-(4-ferrocenyl-[1,2,3]triazol-1-yl) acetate (EFTA) and used for electrocatalytic oxidation of levodopa....