An efficient electrochemical synthesis of diamino-o-benzoquinone: mechanistic and kinetic evaluation of the reaction of azide ion with o-benzoquinone

An efficient method for the synthesis of diamino-o-benzoquinone based on the Michael reaction of electrochemically generated o-benzoquinone with azide ion is described, as well as an estimation of the homogeneous rate constant (k(obs)) of the reaction of o-benzoquinone with azide ion by the digital-simulation method.     

Pyrrole Denitrogenation and Fragmentation of Tetramethylethylenediamine Promoted by a NbII Cluster

A nitrogen center was abstracted from a pyrrolyl ring to form the dinuclear nitrido- and dienyl-bridged complex 1 during the reaction of [{(tmeda)Nb^IICl}₂(μ-Cl)₃Li(tmeda)] with the lithium salt of 2,5-dimethylpyrrole (tmeda=N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylethylenediamine). A second product from this reaction is the amido-carbene-hydride niobium complex 2 , which likewise forms under C−N bond cleavage.     

Enhanced Slime Mould Algorithm for Multilevel Thresholding Image Segmentation Using Entropy Measures

Image segmentation is a fundamental but essential step in image processing because it dramatically influences posterior image analysis. Multilevel thresholding image segmentation is one of the most popular image segmentation techniques, and many researchers have used meta-heuristic optimization algorithms (MAs) to determine the threshold values. However, MAs have some defects; for example, they are prone to stagnate in local optimal and slow convergence speed. This paper proposes an enhanced slime mould algorithm for global optimization and multilevel thresholding image segmentation, namely ESMA. First, the Levy flight method is used to improve the exploration ability of SMA. Second, quasi opposition-based learning is introduced to enhance the exploitation ability and balance the exploration and exploitation. Then, the superiority of the proposed work ESMA is confirmed concerning the 23 benchmark functions. Afterward, the ESMA is applied in multilevel thresholding image segmentation using minimum cross-entropy as the fitness function. We select eight greyscale images as the benchmark images for testing and compare them with the other classical and state-of-the-art algorithms. Meanwhile, the experimental metrics include the average fitness (mean), standard deviation (Std), peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), structure similarity index (SSIM), feature similarity index (FSIM), and Wilcoxon rank-sum test, which is utilized to evaluate the quality of segmentation. Experimental results demonstrated that ESMA is superior to other algorithms and can provide higher segmentation accuracy.     

Direct oxidative synthesis of nitrones from aldehydes and primary anilines using graphite oxide and Oxone

One-pot condensation/oxidation of aldehydes and primary anilines into nitrones using graphite oxide (GO) and Oxone as the oxidant under very mild reaction conditions is described. The proposed method provides a direct oxidative synthesis of various nitrones in good to excellent yields under metal-free conditions in short reaction times.     

Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Polypropylene/Silica Aerogel Composites

Polypropylene (PP) composites including various amounts of silica aerogel (SA) microparticles were prepared by melt mixing in an internal mixer. The morphology and microstructure of the prepared composites were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Mechanical properties of the samples, including elastic modulus, tensile stress, elongation and stress at break, were measured by tensile tests. In addition, the other mechanical features, including Izod impact strength, hardness and wear resistance, were evaluated and then related to the structure of the PP/SA composites. Furthermore, the thermal characteristics of the composites, such as heat deflection temperature and thermal stability, were studied by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The SEM photographs indicated the satisfactory SA particles dispersion for the compositions of 1% and 3% but agglomeration of the aerogels at higher SA contents. Since the composites became stiffer, the impact and tensile strength decreased. The addition of the SA to the PP matrix yielded harder samples with lower weight loss and coefficients of friction in wear tests. The TGA evaluations confirmed that the presence of SA promoted and upgraded the thermal stability and heat deflection temperature of PP. The thermal results proved the superior potential of PP as an insulator when the SA particles were added.