One-Pot,Three-Component Synthesis of Pyrimido[4,5-b]quinoline-tetraone Derivatives in Water

Novel pyrimido[4,5-b]quinoline-tetraones were prepared by the three-component reaction of 2-hydroxynaphthalene-1,4-dione, 6-amino-uracils, and aromatic aldehydes in aqueous media and catalyzed by p-toluenesulfonic acid. This protocol provides a simple one-step procedure with the advantages of easy workup, good yield of products, and environmental friendliness.     

The time-series evaluation of biohydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria under fluctuating illumination pattern

In recent years, world climate change and global warming have been big issues. One of the solutions is to use renewable energies; however, renewable energies have an intermittent nature. In the case of photovoltaic arrays, the intermittency is mainly caused by fluctuating irradiation from sunlight due to clouds. In this study, biohydrogen production from photosynthetic bacteria was focused for the use of fluctuating sunlight irradiation. Previous researches have revealed some characteristics of biohydrogen production, and these results enable one to expect that photosynthetic bacteria have fluctuating light tolerance of biohydrogen production, in which the bacteria are able to produce biohydrogen continuously under fluctuating light irradiation. There have been quite a few studies to evaluate time-course changes of biohydrogen production under fluctuating irradiation, and therefore time-course evaluations have been performed. A 10-min light/dark illumination pattern was set for the fluctuating irradiation and the magnitude of the fluctuation was used to evaluate the fluctuation of the hydrogen production rate and irradiation light. The results indicated that the fluctuation was 0.22 times smaller through the photosynthetic bacteria. The results of this study indicate that photosynthetic bacteria have fluctuating light tolerance. Biohydrogen production, having fluctuating light tolerance, would be useful for realistic use of sunlight energy as renewable energy.     

Multi‐faceted Reactivity of Alkyltellurophenols Towards Peroxyl Radicals: Catalytic Antioxidant Versus Thiol‐Depletion Effect

Hydroxyaryl alkyl tellurides are effective antioxidants both in organic solution and aqueous biphasic systems. They react by an unconventional mechanism with ROO^. radicals with rate constants as high as 10⁷ M ^?1 s^?1 at 303 K, outperforming common phenols. The reactions proceed by oxygen atom transfer to tellurium followed by hydrogen atom transfer to the resulting RO^. radical from the phenolic OH. The reaction rates do not reflect the electronic properties of the ring substituents and, because the reactions occur in a solvent cage, quenching is more efficient when the OH and TeR groups have an ortho arrangement. In the presence of thiols, hydroxyaryl alkyl tellurides act as catalytic antioxidants towards both hydroperoxides (mimicking the glutathione peroxidases) and peroxyl radicals. The high efficiency of the quenching of the peroxyl radicals and hydroperoxides could be advantageous under normal cellular conditions, but pro‐oxidative (thiol depletion) when thiol concentrations are low.     

Selective Solid‐phase Extraction of Cu2+ by a Novel Cu(II)‐imprinted Silica Gel

A new Cu(II)‐imprinted salen functionalized silica gel adsorbent was synthesized by surface imprinting technique and was employed as a selective solid phase extraction material for Cu²⁺ removal from aqueous solutions. The samples were characterized by FT‐IR, ¹HNMR, ¹³CNMR, CHNS and DTG techniques. The BET surface area of the silica gel was also determined. The adsorbent was then used for removal of Cu²⁺ from aqueous solutions under different experimental conditions. It was concluded that the synthesized imprinted silica gel had higher selectivity and capacity compared to the non‐imprinted silica gel and the maximal adsorption capacity of 67.3 and 56.5 mg.g^?1 was obtained respectively for ion‐imprinted and non‐imprinted adsorbents. The relative selectivity factor (β) of 50.32 and 31.94 was obtained respectively for Cu²⁺/Ni²⁺ and Cu²⁺/Zn²⁺ pairs. The dynamic adsorption capacity of the imprinted adsorbent was close to the static adsorption capacity due to the fast kinetic of adsorption. Furthermore, the ion‐imprinted adsorbent was recovered and repeatedly used and satisfactory adsorption capacity with acceptable precision was obtained. Each experiment was repeated at least for three times and the mean and the standard deviation for each measurement were calculated. The applicability of the method was examined for Zayandehrood water as real sample. Acceptabe standard deviation was obtained.     

Local electronic structure around Mn and Ga in Mn-doped GaN films showing room temperature ferromagnetism

Local electronic structures around Ga and Mn in Mn-doped GaN film with T_c of 940 K are investigated by K X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analysis. It was found that the shape of the Ga XANES spectrum is remarkably similar to that of the un-doped GaN film indicating that the local electronic structure around Ga is not disturbed with Mn doping. As for the Mn XANES spectra, obvious pre-edge peaks were observed: the fine structures in the pre-edges correspond with calculated Mn 3d partial density of states which predict impurity band formation with the Fermi energy stays in the spin-up band. These findings imply that Mn 3d levels stay within the gap with the Fermi energy stays in the spin-up band.     

Copper(II) modified carbon paste electrodes based on self-assembled mercapto compounds-gold-nanoparticle

Three mercapto compounds [2-mercapto-5-(1-methyl-5-nitroimidazole-2-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole] (MMNIT), [2-mercapto-5-(5-nitrofuran-2-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole] (MNFT) and [2-mercapto-5-(5-nitrothiophen-2-yl)-1,3,4-thidiazole] (MNTT) were used for self-assembled-gold nanoparticle (SAGNP) modified carbon paste electrodes. The electrodes were applied as indicator electrodes for potentiometric determination of Cu(II) ion. The prepared electrodes exhibit a Nernstian slope of 31.0+/-0.5 mV per decade for Cu(II) ion over a wide concentration range of 7.9x10(-9)-3.2x10(-2), 7.9x10(-9)-7.9x10(-4), and 2.8x10(-8)-7.9x10(-3) mol L(-1) for MMNIT, MNFT and, MNTT, respectively. The detection limits of electrodes were 3.5 (+/-0.2)x10(-9), 4.1x10(-9), and 4.1x10(-8) mol L(-1) of copper ion, respectively. The potentiometric responses of electrodes based on MMNIT, MNFT, and MNTT are independent of the pH of test solution in the pH range 2.0-5.5, 2.5-7.0, and 2.0-6.5, respectively. They have quick response with response time of about 5 s. The proposed electrodes show fairly good selectivity over some alkali, alkaline earth, transition and heavy metal ions. Finally, the proposed electrodes were successfully employed to detect Cu(II) ion in hair and water samples.     

Temperature-swing adsorption of aromatic compounds in water using polyampholyte gel

The adsorption property of the polyampholyte gel composed of sodium styrene sulfate (SSS) and vinylbenzyl trimethylammonium chloride (VBTA) has been investigated with several hydrophobic aromatic compounds as adsorbate. Using the N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPA) gel, the corresponding experiments were also performed for comparison. At room temperature, the NIPA gel hardly adsorbed the aromatic compounds, while it adsorbed them at higher temperatures. As for the SSS-VBTA gel, the adsorption amounts of the polyaromatic compounds decreased with increasing temperature, while the adsorption amounts of the monoaromatic compounds were almost independent of temperature and smaller than those of the polyaromatic compounds. These results indicate that the aromatic rings in the SSS-VBTA gel may play an important role in the adsorption of the aromatic compounds. Also, it has been demonstrated that the SSS-VBTA gel can repeatedly adsorb bisphenol-A at room temperature and desorb it at higher temperature by the temperature-swing operation: this behavior is diametrically opposite to that of the NIPA gel. This shows that the SSS-VBTA gel is much more suitable for the adsorption removal of the hydrophobic aromatic compounds from very dilute aqueous solutions, because a vast amount of energy is required for heating a large amount of water when using the NIPA gel.