Production of fibroin nanopowder through electrospraying

Fibroin is a biomaterial and in the powder form, has found applications such as food and cosmetic additive as well as drug delivery. Various methods have been employed to produce fibroin powder with different particle size range. In this study, a novel and original application of electrospraying technique capable of producing fibroin nanopowder is presented. Our technique is based on electrospraying of dilute fibroin solution in formic acid. Moreover, the effect of variables in electrospraying, namely, concentration of fibroin solution, voltage, feed rate, and needle–collector distance, on average particle size of fibroin nanopowder has been studied. The result of this study showed that electrospraying is capable of producing fibroin nanopowder with average particle size as low as 80 nm. In fact in comparison to other methods reported in the literature, electrospraying alongside with the precipitation method produce fibroin nanopowder with the lowest particle size. However, nanopowder obtained through electrospraying technique enjoys a more uniform spherical shape and size. As far as the variables are concerned, it was ascertained that lower concentrations, lower feed rates and longer needle–collector distances lead to a decrease in the average particle size of fibroin nanopowder. Increasing voltage up to 20 kV decreases the particle size; but with higher voltages the average particle size increases. FT-IR and XRD studies showed that the fibroin nanopowder has a β-sheets structure, similar to fibroin filaments but with a lower crystallinity index.     

Green and rapid synthesis of dihydropyrimido [4,5‐b]quinolinetrione derivatives using CoFe2O4@PPA as high efficient solid acidic catalyst under ultrasonic irradiation

A new high efficient and green protocol for the preparation of dihydropyrimido[4,5‐b]quinolinetrione derivatives using magnetically solid acid catalyst was presented. High performance solid acid catalyst was prepared through a three‐step reaction. Firstly, CoFe₂O₄ nano particles were synthesized using co‐precipitation method. In second step, CoFe₂O₄ nano particles were coated with SiO₂ shell through treatment with tetraethyl orthosilicate (CoFe₂O₄@SiO₂). Finaly, CoFe₂O₄@SiO₂ was modified with polyphosphoric acid (CoFe₂O₄@SiO₂/PPA) in a simple manner. Green reusable catalyst was characterized in details using FTIR, VSM, TEM, FESEM, EDX and used as catalyst for the synthesis of dihydropyrimido[4,5‐b]quinolinetrione derivatives. Reaction was performed under ultrasonic irradiation as green, effective and mild conditions and products were achieved in high to excellent yields. Green and eco‐friendly conditions, short reaction times with high yield of products in addition to easy workup are some merits of presented method.     

Surface plasmon–polariton modes of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes

Propagation of surface plasmon–polariton modes in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes is investigated within the framework of the classical electrodynamics. Electronic excitations on the nanotube's surface are modeled by an infinitesimally thin layer of free-electron gas which is described by means of the linearized hydrodynamic theory. General expression of surface modes dispersion is obtained by solving Maxwell and hydrodynamic equations with appropriate boundary conditions. It is shown that the system generally disallows the separation of the transverse electric (TE) modes and transverse magnetic (TM) modes, except for the case of modes with no angular dependence.     

Green and diasteroselective oxidative cyclization of bisnaphthols to spirans

Hydrogen peroxide/MoO₃, as an efficient and clean oxidizing system was used to afford diasteroselective oxidative cyclization of bisnaphthols to spirans in ethanol at 60 °C with high yields. Bisnaphthols were prepared by the reaction of a series of aldehydes and 2-naphthol in the presence of a catalytic amount of H₃[P(Mo₃O₁₀)₄].nH₂O (HPa) in refluxing dichloromethane.     

A nanostructure-based electrochemical sensor for square wave voltammetric determination of N-acetylcysteine in pharmaceutical and biological samples

Ionics - In this study, a carbon paste electrode (CPE) was chemically modified with Pt/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposite and 8,9-dihydroxy-7-methyl-12H-benzothiazolo [2,3-b] quinazolin-12-one...     

Some interpretations for algebraic invariants of edge ideals of hypergraphs via combinatorial invariants

Abstract

The present work is concerned with characterizing some algebraic invariants of edge ideals of hypergraphs. To this aim, first, we introduce some kinds of combinatorial invariants similar to matching numbers for hypergraphs. Then we compare them to each other and to previously existing ones. These invariants are used for characterizing or bounding some algebraic invariants of edge ideals of hypergraphs such as graded Betti numbers, projective dimension and Castelnouvo–Mumford regularity.

Communicated by Jason P. Bell     

Around Jensen’s inequality for strongly convex functions

In this paper we use basic properties of strongly convex functions to obtain new inequalities including Jensen type and Jensen–Mercer type inequalities. Applications for special means are pointed out as well. We also give a Jensen’s operator inequality for strongly convex functions. As a corollary, we improve the Hölder-McCarthy inequality under suitable conditions. More precisely we show that if \(Sp\left( A \right) \subset \left( 1,\infty \right) \), then

$$\begin{aligned} {{\left\langle Ax,x \right\rangle }^{r}}\le \left\langle {{A}^{r}}x,x \right\rangle -\frac{{{r}^{2}}-r}{2}\left( \left\langle {{A}^{2}}x,x \right\rangle -{{\left\langle Ax,x \right\rangle }^{2}} \right) ,\quad r\ge 2 \end{aligned}$$

and if \(Sp\left( A \right) \subset \left( 0,1 \right) \), then

$$\begin{aligned} \left\langle {{A}^{r}}x,x \right\rangle \le {{\left\langle Ax,x \right\rangle }^{r}}+\frac{r-{{r}^{2}}}{2}\left( {{\left\langle Ax,x \right\rangle }^{2}}-\left\langle {{A}^{2}}x,x \right\rangle \right) ,\quad 0<r<1 \end{aligned}$$

for each positive operator A and \(x\in \mathcal {H}\) with \(\left\| x \right\| =1\).

     

Application of surfactant assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for sample preparation of chlorophenols in water samples

A simple, rapid, and efficient method, based on surfactant assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (SA-DLLME), followed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed for the extraction and determination of chlorophenols as model compounds in environmental water samples. A conventional cationic surfactant called cethyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was used as a disperser agent in the proposed approach. Thirty-five microliter of 1-octanol as an extraction solvent was injected rapidly into 11 mL aqueous sample containing 0.09 mmol L⁻¹ of CTAB, the mixture was then shaken for 3 min to disperse the organic phase. Having the extraction procedure been completed, the mixture was centrifuged and 20 μL of collected phase was injected into HPLC for subsequent analysis. Some parameters such as the type and volume of the extraction solvent, the type and concentration of surfactant, pH, ionic strength, shaking time, extraction temperature and centrifugation time were optimized. The preconcentration factors (PFs) in a range of 187-353 were obtained under the optimum conditions. The linear range, detection limit (S/N = 3), and precision (n = 5) were 0.2-200, 0.1 μg L⁻¹, and 4.7-6.9%, respectively. Tap water, sea water and mineral water samples were successfully analyzed for the existence of chlorophenols using the proposed method.