Novel Fe3O4/hydroxyapatite/β‐cyclodextrin nanocomposite adsorbent: Synthesis and application in heavy metal removal from aqueous solution

The increased global concern on environmental protection has made researchers focus their attention on new and more efficient methods of pollutant removal. In this research, novel nanocomposite adsorbents,i.e., magnetic hydroxyapatite (Fe₃O₄@HA) and magnetic hydroxyapatite β‐cyclodextrin (Fe₃O₄@HA‐CD) were synthesized and used for heavy metal removal. The adsorbents were characterized by FTIR, XRD, TGA, VSM, and SEM. In order to investigate the effect of β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD) removal efficiency, adsorption results of nine metal ions were compared for both adsorbents. β‐CD showed the most increasing effect for Cd²⁺ and Cu²⁺ removal, so these two ions were selected for further studies. The effect of diverse parameters including pH, contact time, initial metal ion concentration and adsorbent dosage on the adsorption process was discussed. The optimum pH was 6 and adsorption equilibrium was achieved after 1 hr. Adsorption kinetic data were well fitted by pseudo‐second‐order model proposing that metal ions were adsorbed via chemical reaction. Adsorption isotherm was best described by the Langmuir model, and maximum adsorption capacity for Cd²⁺ and Cu²⁺ was 100.00 and 66.66 (mg/g), respectively. Desorption experiment was also done, and the most efficient eluent used for desorption of metal ions was EDTA (0.001 M) with 91% and 88% of Cd²⁺ and Cu²⁺ release, respectively. Recyclability studies also showed a 19% decrease in the adsorption capacity of the adsorbent after five cycles of regeneration. Therefore, the synthesized adsorbents were recognized as potential candidates for heavy metal adsorption applications.     

Change in ~7Be half-life in host media

First-principle calculations within the density functional theory framework are used to study the probability of electron capture for the ~7Be nucleus.For this purpose,electron density at the ~7Be nucleus is computed in Al,Au,Pd,Pt,and Pb environments.Our results show that the half-life of ~7Be is changed by implanting ~7Be in host environments.Electron affinity of the media and confinement effects are responsible for the change in the half-life of ~7Be nucleus.Moreover,electric potential at the ~7Be nucleus is calculated.Results show that variations in electric potential are usually consistent with those in electron density at the ~7Be nucleus.     

On the Toeplitzness of the adjoint of composition operators

Building on techniques developed by Cowen (1988)  [3] and Nazarov–Shapiro (2007)  [10], it is shown that the adjoint of a composition operator, induced by a unit disk-automorphism, is not strongly asymptotically Toeplitz. This result answers Nazarov–Shapiro’s question in Nazarov and Shapiro (2007)  [10].     

Microextraction of Rosmarinic Acid Using CMK-3 Nanoporous Carbon in a Packed Syringe

CMK-3 nanoporous carbon was prepared and used as an efficient sorbent for microextraction in packed syringe of rosmarinic acid in Rosmarinus officinalis L. (rosemary). In the proposed method, only 2 mg of the nanoporous material, inserted between a syringe’s barrel and needle, was sufficient for the extraction with minimum consumption of organic solvents. Sample preparation was performed on the packed bed using a laboratory-made programmable apparatus. The apparatus was designed and used for automation of the conditioning, sampling, washing and elution steps of the method, and increasing the reproducibility of the experiments. For optimization of the experimental parameters, a central composite design method was used. Under the optimized conditions (i.e., number of adsorption cycles 14 times, number of elution cycles ten times and volume of elution 100 μL), an extraction recovery of 90 (±4.5) % was obtained for rosmarinic acid. The same packing bed could be used for at least 80 extractions without significant changes in its properties. The efficiency of the nanoporous sorbent was found to be superior to that of activated carbon, by a factor of about 17. The proposed method was successfully applied to the extraction of three rosemary samples before analysis by HPLC.

     

Application of He's variational iteration method for solving the Cauchy reaction–diffusion problem

In this paper, the solution of Cauchy reaction–diffusion problem is presented by means of variational iteration method. Reaction–diffusion equations have special importance in engineering and sciences and constitute a good model for many systems in various fields. Application of variational iteration technique to this problem shows the rapid convergence of the sequence constructed by this method to the exact solution. Moreover, this technique does not require any discretization, linearization or small perturbations and therefore it reduces significantly the numerical computations.     

A seminumeric approach for solution of the Eikonal partial differential equation and its applications

In this work, a partial differential equation, which has several important applications, is investigated, and some techniques based on semianalytic (or quasi‐numerical) approaches are developed to find its solution. In this article, the homotopy perturbation method (HPM), Adomian decomposition method, and the modified homotopy perturbation method are proposed to solve the Eikonal equation. HPM yields solution in convergent series form with easily computable terms, and in some case, yields exact solutions in one iteration. In other hand, in Adomian decomposition method, the approximate solution is considered as an infinite series usually converges to the accurate solution. Moreover, these methods do not require any discretization, linearization, or small perturbation, and therefore reduce the numerical computation a lot. Several test problems are given and results are compared with the variational iteration method. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2010     

Comprehensive study of the interaction between hydrogen halides and methanol derivatives

The R? CH₂? HO…H? X (R = SCl, Cl, SH, NO₂, OMe, CHO, CN, C₂H₅, CH₃, H; X = F, Cl, Br) complexes are considered here as the interest sample for the consideration of different measures of H‐bond strength. The intermolecular interaction energies are predicted by using MP2/6‐31++G(d,p) and B3LYP/6‐31++G(d,p) methods with basis set superposition error and zero‐point energy corrections. The results showed that intermolecular hydrogen bonds for complexes with HF are stronger than such interactions in complexes with HCl and HBr. Quantum theory of “Atoms in Molecules” and natural bond orbitals method were applied to analyzed H‐bond interactions. The gas phase thermodynamic properties of complexes were predicted using quantum mechanical computations. The obtained results showed a strong influence of the R and X substituents on the thermodynamic properties of complexes. Numerous correlations between topological, geometrical, thermodynamic properties and energetic parameters were also found. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Synthesis of new indolyl crown ethers catalyzed with ferric hydrogensulfate

Efficient reaction of bis-indolyl podand with different aldehydes using Fe（HSO₄）₃ as catalyst to afford the corresponding new indolyl crown ethers is described.The structures of three distinct isomers have been optimized using HyperChem geometry optimizations.Also percentage of each isomer was obtained with ¹H NMR spectroscopy.