Chemical interactions between silver nanoparticles and thiols: a comparison of mercaptohexanol against cysteine

The interaction between citrate capped silver nanoparticles and two different thiols, mercaptohexanol(MH) and cysteine, was investigated. The thiols interacted with silver nanoparticles in a significantly contrasting manner. With MH, a sparingly soluble silver(I) thiolate complex AgSRm(Rm = –(CH2)6OH) was formed on the silver nanoparticle surface. Cyclic voltammograms and UV-vis spectra were used to infer that the AgSRm complex on the nanoparticle surface undergoes a phase transition to give a mixture of AgSRm and Ag2S-like complexes. In contrast, when silver nanoparticles were exposed to cysteine, the citrate capping agent on the silver nanoparticles was replaced by cysteine to give cysteine capped nanoparticles. As cysteine capped nanoparticles form, the electrochemical data displayed a decrease in oxidative peak charge but the UV-vis spectra showed a constant signal. Therefore, cysteine capped nanoparticles were suggested to have either inactivated the silver surface or else promoted detachment from the electrode surface.     

New Indole Alkaloids from Kopsia. Alkaloid Variation in Kopsia singapurensis

Five new indole alkaloids, viz., kopsiloscine G ( 2 ), kopsidarine ( 4 ), kopsimaline F ( 6 ), kopsidine C N‐oxide ( 7 ), and aspidophylline B ( 9 ), in addition to 17 other known alkaloids, were obtained from the leaf and stem‐bark extract of the Malaysian Kopsia singapurensis. The structures were determined by using NMR and MS analysis. The results are compared with the alkaloidal composition of another sample of K. singapurensis, collected from the same location but at a different time of the year, as well as with other samples of K. singapurensis collected from different locations.     

Mn(III)-catalyzed synthesis of pyrroles from vinyl azides and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds

Polysubstituted N-H pyrroles with a wide variety of substituents were prepared from vinyl azides and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds by using Mn(III) complexes as catalysts.     

Temperature dependent spectral properties of type-I and quasi type-II CdSe/CdS dot-in-rod nanocrystals

We investigated systematically the temperature dependence of the spectral properties such as the band gap, bandwidth and fluorescence intensity of CdSe/CdS dot-in-rod nanocrystals. These asymmetry nanoparticles were synthesized by seeded growth techniques with band alignment of the type-I and quasi type-II with initial core sizes of 3.3 and 2.3 nm, respectively. With increasing temperature the band gap decreases and bandwidth increases, largely due to exciton-phonon scattering. Anomalous variations of the band gap and bandwidth were observed at 200-240 K, and the variations are attributed to the anisotropic strain in the CdSe/CdS interface due to temperature dependent lattice mismatch. The integrated intensity of fluorescence shows two variation regimes. In the low temperature regime, the intensity remained roughly constant due to the temperature dependent carrier mobility and trapping by the defect states in the CdS shell. However, in the higher temperature regime, the intensity decreased quickly due to thermal/phonon assisted escape from the CdSe dot. The barrier depths are estimated to be about 557 and 285 meV for type-I and quasi type-II samples, respectively.     

Bioavailability of metallic impurities in carbon nanotubes is greatly enhanced by ultrasonication

Metallic impurities within carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are considered as the main cause of their toxicity. Ultrasonication is a common procedure used to purify and obtain homogeneous dispersions of CNTs as well as to mix them with other components for further processing into composites. Herein, the influence of ultrasonication upon the bioavailability of metallic impurities in CNTs was investigated. We showed that even ultrasonication times as short as 5?min significantly enhanced the bioavailability of metallic impurities, which can therefore interact more actively with biologically important molecules. These findings will have profound impact on the processing of CNTs as well as on nanotoxicity studies.     

Copper-catalyzed aerobic intramolecular carbo- and amino-oxygenation of alkynes for synthesis of azaheterocycles

A synthetic method of highly substituted quinolines has been developed from N-(2-alkynylaryl)enamine carboxylates under Cu-catalyzed aerobic conditions via intramolecular carbo-oxygenation of alkynes. This strategy was further applied for N-alkynylamidines for amino-oxygenation of alkynes, leading to imidazole and quinazoline derivatives.     

An implementable proximal point algorithmic framework for nuclear norm minimization

The nuclear norm minimization problem is to find a matrix with the minimum nuclear norm subject to linear and second order cone constraints. Such a problem often arises from the convex relaxation of a rank minimization problem with noisy data, and arises in many fields of engineering and science. In this paper, we study inexact proximal point algorithms in the primal, dual and primal-dual forms for solving the nuclear norm minimization with linear equality and second order cone constraints. We design efficient implementations of these algorithms and present comprehensive convergence results. In particular, we investigate the performance of our proposed algorithms in which the inner sub-problems are approximately solved by the gradient projection method or the accelerated proximal gradient method. Our numerical results for solving randomly generated matrix completion problems and real matrix completion problems show that our algorithms perform favorably in comparison to several recently proposed state-of-the-art algorithms. Interestingly, our proposed algorithms are connected with other algorithms that have been studied in the literature.     

Recent advances in analytical chemistry--a material approach

Advancements of materials research have profound direct impacts on developments in analytical chemistry and may hold the key to improvement of existing or new techniques at present times and near future. Applications of materials in analytical chemistry are reviewed, with focus on sensors, separations and extraction techniques. This review aims to survey examples of interesting works carried out in the last five years over a broad spectrum of materials classified as hybrids, nanomaterials and biomolecular materials.     

大孔吸附树脂结合酶解法分离纯化虎杖中白藜芦醇的研究

研究了大孔吸附树脂结合酶解法提取和纯化虎杖中白藜芦醇的方法,采用HPLC法测定虎杖中白藜芦醇的含量,考查了β-糖苷酶对虎杖药材酶解前后白藜芦醇含量的变化,并经静态吸附考察了4种树脂,最后确定以H1020作为提取分离白藜芦醇的树脂.此树脂吸附量较高,脱附容易,有利于得到质量较好的白藜芦醇产品,经该树脂吸附解吸,饱和吸附量可达51.4mg/g,解吸率达92.5%.大孔树脂分离纯化白藜芦醇的含量可达71.5%,而上柱前粗提物中白藜芦醇含量为8.71%,说明采用本法分离纯化虎杖中白藜芦醇是可行的.     

Quintic and septic Eisenstein series

Using results that were well-known to Ramanujan, we give proofs of some results for Eisenstein series in the lost notebook. Our proofs have the additional advantage that it is not necessary to know the results in advance; that is, the proofs are derivations as opposed to verifications.