The formation of cyclopentenones and 3(2h)-furanones from acetylenic precursors

Acetylenic alcohols, obtained in high yield from condensations of 3,3-diethoxypropyne or 3,3-ethylenedioxybutyne with cyclic ketones, may be used as substrates for cyclopentenone annelation or spirofuranone synthesis.     

Transient modeling of non-isothermal, dispersed two-phase flow in natural gas pipelines

Unsteady-state or transient two-phase flow, caused by any change in rates, pressures or temperature at any location in a two-phase flow line, may last from a few seconds to several hours. In general, these changes are an order of magnitude longer than the transient encountered during single-phase flow. The primary reason for this phenomenon is that the velocity of wave propagation in a two-phase mixture is significantly slower. Interfacial transfer of mass, momentum and energy further complicate the problem. It is primarily due to the numerical difficulties anticipated in accurately modeling transient two-phase flow that the state of the art in this important area is restricted to a handful of studies with direct applicability to petroleum and gas engineering. A limited amount of information on the subject of two-phase transport phenomena is available in the petroleum engineering literature. Most of the publications for two-phase flow of gas assume that temperature is constant over the entire length of the pipeline.This study is the first effort to simulate the non-isothermal, one-dimensional, transient homogenous two-phase flow gas pipeline system using two-fluid conservation equations. The modified Peng–Robinson equation of state is used to calculate the vapor–liquid equilibrium in multi-component natural gas to find the vapor and liquid compressibility factors. Mass transfer between the gas and the liquid phases is treated rigorously through flash calculation, making the algorithm capable of handling retrograde condensation. The liquid droplets are assumed to be spheres of uniform size, evenly dispersed throughout the gas phase.The method of solution is the fully implicit finite difference method. This method is stable for gas pipeline simulations when using a large time step and therefore minimizes the computation time. The algorithm used to solve the non-linear finite difference thermo-fluid equations for two-phase flow through a pipe is based on the Newton–Raphson method.The results show that the liquid condensate holdup is a strong function of temperature, pressure, mass flow rate, and mixture composition. Also, the fully implicit method has advantages, such as the guaranteed stability for large time step, which is very useful for simulating long-term transients in natural gas pipeline systems.     

Development of non-enzymatic strip for simple and selective determination of urea in water and biological samples

A simple and selective method for the determination of urea based on the paptode technique is described. The sensor was constructed by immobilizing an ionophore on a TLC strip. The procedure is based on the nucleophilic displacement of urea with tetrachloro-p-benzoquinone (chloranil) as an ionophore, and the formed violet-color product was detected using a flatbed scanner. The color of each spot was analyzed to red (R), green (G) and blue (B) values from 0 to 255 using a program written in visual basic (VB) programming language. The calibration graph obtained with the proposed sensor was linear over the range of 0.05?C10.00?mg?L^?1 with a detection limit of 0.01?mg?L^?1 for urea. Parameters such as pH and concentration of chloranil were optimized. The proposed sensor was successfully applied for the determination of urea in bovine serum, urine and tap water samples.     

Application of spectral beta-correction method and partial least squares for simultaneous determination of V(IV) and V(V) in surfactant media

Simultaneous determination of V(IV) and V(V) was performed by application of partial least squares when the calibration matrix was obtained using beta-correction spectra. Two reaction between V(IV) and V(V) and Pyrogallol Red as a ligand in presence of cethyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) media has been investigated and applied to the simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of these species. The parameters controlling behavior of the system were investigated and optimum conditions selected. Determinations were made over the concentration range 0.6-4.50 microg ml-1 of V(IV) and 0.3-5.50 microg ml-1 of V(V). Applying this method to simultaneous determination of these metal ions in several real samples with total relative standard error less than 5% validated the proposed method.     

Simultaneous determination of zirconium and molybdenum by first-derivative spectrophotometry.

A first-derivative spectrophotometric method for the simultaneous determination of Zr and Mo with Alizarin Red S is described. Measurements were made at the zero-crossing wavelengths at 490.5 nm for Zr and 446.0 nm for Mo. The calibration graphs were linear at 0.5-20 and 0.5-13.0 microg ml(-1) for Zr and Mo, respectively. The possible interfering effects of various ions were studied. Only iron was interfered in this system. The validity of the method was examined by using some mixtures of Mo and Zr. The method was applied in different matrix in both presence and absence of some foreign metal ions.     

(110) Facet of rutile-structured GeO2: an ab initio investigation

GeO₂ is an enticing candidate to replace SiO₂ in electronics industry. To date, no work has appeared in the literature specifically focusing on the (110) facet of rutile GeO₂. Density functional theory was applied along with plane-wave approximation to describe the structure and energetics of the (110) plane of tetragonal germanium dioxide. Surface energies were estimated using dispersion-free Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof (PBE) method as well as dispersion-corrected PBE-D3, D3-corrected revised version of PBE (RPBE-D3), optB88-vdW and optB86b-vdW methods. Atomic displacements with respect to the bulk structure were also reported for slabs relaxed using the aforementioned exchange–correlation functionals. Adsorption energies for weakly bound CO on rutile GeO₂(110) surface were also computed using the above-mentioned methods. Vibrational frequency blue-shift of CO as adsorbed onto rutile GeO₂(110) surface was also predicted. All the calculated values were comparable to the pertinent literature data, either theoretical or experimental, when available.     

The loop product for 3-manifolds

Let M be a connected, closed, oriented and smooth manifold of dimension d. Let LM be the space of loops in M. Chas and Sullivan introduced the loop product, an associative product of degree ?d on the homology of LM. In this Note we aim at identifying 3-manifolds with “non-trivial” loop products. To cite this article: H. Abbaspour, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 338 (2004).     

Synthesis of benzo[f]isoindole-4,9-diones

A synthesis of benzo[f]isoindole-4,9-diones 1 is presented starting from the reaction of 2,3-bis(bromomethyl)-1,4-dimethoxynaphthalene 15 with primary amines affording 2,3-bis(aminomethyl)-1,4-dimethoxynaphthalenes 14, which could be converted by CAN-mediated oxidation in one step to benzo[f]isoindole-4,9-diones 1. An alternative synthesis of benzo[f]isoindole-4,9-diones 1 starts from 2,3-bis(bromomethyl)-1,4-naphthoquinone 9 via 2,3-dihydrobenzo[f]isoindoles 10 which spontaneously oxidize.     

A selective and sensitive carbon composite coated platinum electrode for aluminium determination in pharmaceutical and mineral water samples

A novel coated wire electrode (CWE) for Al(III) ions is described based on 2-(1H-benzo[d]imidazole-1-yl)-1-phenylethanoneoxime as a new ionophore in carbon-PVC composite. The sensor exhibits significantly enhanced selectivity toward Al³⁺ ions over the concentration range 4.3 × 10⁻⁷ to 5.0 × 10⁻² M with a lower detection limit of 2.5 × 10⁻⁷ M and a Nernstian slope of 19.41 ± 0.52 mV decade⁻¹ of aluminium activity. This sensor has a short response time of about 10 s and is reproducible and stable for at least forty-five days. This proposed CWE which is designed for the first time revealed good selectivity for Al(III) over a wide variety of other cations. The performance of the sensor is best in the pH range of 3.1-5.5 and it also works well in partially non-aqueous medium. Moreover, the assembly has been successfully used as an indicator electrode in the potentiometric titration of aluminium (III) against EDTA and also in determining Al(III) quantitatively in pharmaceutical and mineral water samples.