Secondary flow patterns and mixing in laminar pulsating flow through a curved pipe

Mixing by secondary flow is studied by particle image velocimetry (PIV) in a developing laminar pulsating flow through a circular curved pipe. The pipe curvature ratio is η = r ₀/r _c  = 0.09, and the curvature angle is 90°. Different secondary flow patterns are formed during an oscillation period due to competition among the centrifugal, inertial, and viscous forces. These different secondary-flow structures lead to different transverse-mixing schemes in the flow. Here, transverse mixing enhancement is investigated by imposing different pulsating conditions (Dean number, velocity ratio, and frequency parameter); favorable pulsating conditions for mixing are introduced. To obviate light-refraction effects during PIV measurements, a T-shaped structure is installed downstream of the curved pipe. Experiments are carried out for the Reynolds numbers range 420 ≤ Re_st ≤ 1,000 (Dean numbers 126.6 ≤ Dn ≤ 301.5) corresponding to non-oscillating flow, velocity component ratios 1 ≤ (β = U _max,osc/U _m,st) ≤ 4 (the ratio of velocity amplitude of oscillations to the mean velocity without oscillations), and frequency parameters 8.37 < (α = r ₀(ω/ν)^0.5) < 24.5, where α² is the ratio of viscous diffusion time over the pipe radius to the characteristic oscillation time. The variations in cross-sectional average values of absolute axial vorticity (|ζ|) and transverse strain rate (|ε|) are analyzed in order to quantify mixing. The effects of each parameter (Re_st, β, and α) on transverse mixing are discussed by comparing the dimensionless vorticities (|ζ _P |/|ζ _S |) and dimensionless transverse strain rates (|ε _P |/|ε _S |) during a complete oscillation period.     

Synthesis and characterizations of ultra-small ZnS and Zn(1-x)Fe(x)S quantum dots in aqueous media and spectroscopic study of their interactions with bovine serum albumin

This work reports a new experimental methodology for the synthesis of ultra small zinc sulfide and iron doped zinc sulfide quantum dots in aqueous media. The nanoparticles were obtained using a simple procedure based on the precipitation of ZnS in aqueous solution in the presence of 2-mercaptoethanol as a capping agent, at room temperature. The effect of Fe(3+) ion concentration as dopant on the optical properties of ZnS was studied. The size of quantum dots was determined to be about 1nm, using scanning tunneling microscopy. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis absorption and photoluminescence emission spectroscopies. The presence and amount of iron impurity in the structure of Zn((1-x))Fe(x)S nanocrystals were confirmed by atomic absorption spectrometry. A blue shift in band-gap of ZnS was observed upon increasing incorporation of Fe(3+) ion in the iron doped zinc sulfide quantum dots. The photoluminescence investigations showed that, in the case of iron doped ZnS nanoparticles, the emission band of pure ZnS nanoparticles at 427nm shifts to 442nm with appearance of a new sharp emission band around 532nm. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the iron doped nanoparticles are crystalline, with cubic zinc blend structure, having particle diameters of 1.7±022nm. Finally, the interaction of the synthesized nanoparticles with bovine serum albumin was investigated at pH 7.2. The UV-Vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopic methods were applied to compare the optical properties of pure and iron doped ZnS quantum dots upon interaction with BSA. It was proved that, in both cases, the fluorescence quenching of BSA by the quantum dots is mainly a result of the formation of QDs-BSA complex in solution. In the steady-state fluorescence studies, the interaction parameters including binding constants (K(a)), number of binding sites (n), quenching constants ( [Formula: see text] ), and bimolecular quenching rate constants (k(q)) were determined at three different temperatures and the results were then used to evaluate the corresponding thermodynamic parameters ΔH, ΔS and ΔG.     

Pre-concentration of ultra trace amounts of copper,zinc, cobalt and nickel in environmental water samples using modified C18 extraction disks and determination by inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry

A highly sensitive and accurate method for pre-concentration and determination of ultra trace amounts of zinc, copper, cobalt and nickel ions in environmental water samples is proposed. The method is based on the solid phase extraction of these ions on C18-bonded silica extraction disks modified with a novel Schiff base 2,2′-[1,6-hexanediyl bis (nitriloethylidine)]bis-1-naphthol (HDN). The retained ions on the prepared solid phase was eluted with 10 mL 0.01 M nitric acid and measured by inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry. The extraction efficiency and the influence of the type and least amount of eluent for the stripping of ions from the disks, pH, flow rates of sample solution and eluent, amount of HDN, effect of other ions and breakthrough volume were evaluated. The limits of detection of the method were 0.2, 0.2, 0.8 and 0.6 µg L^?1 for zinc, copper, cobalt and nickel, respectively and an enrichment factor of 100 was obtained. The proposed method was applied for determination of zinc, copper, cobalt and nickel ions in some natural and synthetic water samples with satisfactory results.     

Triphenylphosphine-Catalyzed Preparation of Sterically Congested,Electron-Poor N-Vinylimidazole Derivatives from Acetylenic Esters and Imidazole-Containing NH-Acids

Protonation of the highly reactive 1:1 intermediates, produced in the reaction between triphenylphosphine and alkyl acetylenecarboxylates (or ethyl 3-phenyl-2-propynoate), by azathioprine or imidazole leads to vinyltriphenylphosphonium salts, which undergo a Michael addition reaction with a conjugate base to produce phosphorus ylides. Dipotassium hydrogen phosphate, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, and potassium iodide were found to catalyze the conversion of the phosphorus ylides to electron-poor N-vinyl imidazoles in solvent-free conditions under thermal (90°C, 1 h) conditions. The structural analysis of the products indicated that the reaction is regio- and stereoselective.     

Melamine Trisulfunic Acid: An Efficient and Recyclable Solid Acid Catalyst for the Synthesis of 4,4′‐(Arylmethylene)‐bis‐(1H‐pyrazol‐5‐ols)

Melamine trisulfunic acid is employed as a recyclable catalyst for the condensation reaction of aromatic aldehydes with 3‐methyl‐l‐phenyl‐2‐pyrazolin‐5‐one. This condensation reaction was performed in ethanol under refluxing conditions giving 4,4′‐(arylmethylene)‐bis‐(3‐methyl‐1‐phenyl‐1H‐pyrazol‐5‐ols) in 80‐96% yields.     

Assessing the performance of density functional theory for the dynamic polarizabilities of amino acids: Treatment of correlation and role of exact exchange

The theoretical determination of electric response properties of the biological systems is a field where the application of density functional theory (DFT) appears to be quite promising. In this work, the performance of 41 density functional methods is evaluated in predicting dynamic polarizabilities of an experimental benchmark set of 20 proteinogenic amino acids. The behavior of a large number of density functionals, including various types of the local spin density approximation (LSDA), generalized gradient approximation (GGA), meta‐GGA (m‐GGA), hybrid‐GGA (h‐GGA), hybrid meta‐GGA (hm‐GGA), and range‐separated hybrid‐GGA (rsh‐GGA), has been assessed for the purpose. Analyzing the results of our DFT benchmarking, we found that these computationally economical methods show very diverse predictive capability and a careful selection of DFT functionals is very important in the polarizability calculations. Considering the role of exchange, correlation, dispersion and long‐range corrections, it turned out that in the LSDA class, SVWN3 gives better results than SPL and SVWN5 toward the reference values. Of the GGA methods, OPBE outperforms all other functionals. The M06‐L is the best method of m‐GGA class. The B3LYP and TPSSh are the best functionals of h‐GGA and hm‐GGA lineages, respectively. Finally, CAM‐B3LYP is the best method of rsh‐GGA functionals that predicts the most accurate polarizability for amino acids by a large margin with respect to others. Overall, the best performing functionals turn out to be hm‐GGAs TPSSh, TPSS1KCIS, M05, tau‐HCTHhyb, and h‐GGA B3LYP. Hopefully, the results of this investigation might provide the useful guidance to propose a new exchange‐correlation functional for calculating the optical properties of biomolecular materials. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Development of a novel flow injection liquid-liquid microextraction method for the on-line separation and preconcentration for determination of zinc(II) using 5-(8-hydroxy-2-quinolinylmethyl)-2,8-dithia-5-aza-2,6-pyridinophane as a sensitive and selective fluorescent chemosensor

A novel flow injection analysis (FIA) system based on liquid-liquid microextraction and fluorimetric determination was developed for the determination of traces of the Zn²⁺ ion using 5-(8-hydroxy-2-quinolinylmethyl)-2,8-dithia-5-aza-2,6-pyridinophane (L) as a sensitive and selective fluorimetric sensor, with λ_ex = 373 nm and λ_em = 530 nm, and hexanol as the extracting organic solvent. In the designed FIA system, the phase separation takes place via gravitation forces in the absence of any segmenter. The influence of pH and ionic strength of the solution, amount of ligand, nature of counter ion, volume of organic solvent, extraction time and coil length was investigated. Under optimized experimental conditions, the calibration curve found to be liner over a concentration range of 0.025-4.53 μg mL⁻¹ (R² = 0.9951) with a limit of detection of 2.3 ng mL⁻¹. The enrichment factor was 45 and relative standard deviation for 7 replicate determinations was 2.43%. The method is very fast and uses low levels of organic solvents. The proposed method was applied successfully to the determination of zinc(II) in human hair, human serum and two inorganic sludge samples.     

A one-pot pseudo nine-component isocyanide-based reaction: synthesis of a new class of zinc 1,5-disubstituted 1H-tetrazol-5-yl coordination complexes

A novel one-pot pseudo nine-component synthesis of zinc 1,5-disubstituted 1H-tetrazol-5-yl coordination complexes in good yields starting from simple and readily available substrates, including a 1,3-dicarbonyl compound, an isocyanide, N,N-dimethylformamide dimethyl acetal, sodium azide, and zinc chloride in methanol at ambient temperature, is described.     

The influence of surface effects on Frederiks transition in nematic liquid crystal doped with ferroelectric nanoparticles

Motivated by our recent work,in this work,we present the numerical study of the anchoring effect on the Frederiks threshold field in a nematic liquid crystal doped with ferroelectric colloidal nanoparticles.Assuming weak anchoring conditions,we employ the relaxation method and Maxwell construction to numerically solve the Euler–Lagrangian differential equation for the total free energy together the Rapini–Papoular surface energy to take into account anchoring of nematic liquid crystal molecules at the substrates.In this study,we focus our attention on obtaining the phase diagrams of Frederiks transition for different values of anchoring strength which have been not computed in our previous work.In this way,the effect of nanoparticle radius,nanoparticle volume fraction,nanoparticle polarization,and cell thickness on the Frederiks transition for different values of anchoring conditions are summarized in the phase diagrams.The numerical results show that by increasing the nanoparticles size and nanoparticle volume fraction in the ferronematic system,the Frederiks threshold field is strongly reduced.     

Biodegradable Cell-Seeded Collagen Based Polymer Scaffolds for Wound Healing and Skin Reconstruction

In the present study a collagen-glycosaminoglycans scaffold, following chemical modifications, was prepared as an analog of the extracellular matrix (ECM) by a freeze drying method. Appropriate tests related to its use for wound healing (evaluation of the structure by scanning electron microscopy, swelling properties, biodegradability properties, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and cell culture) were done on the scaffolds. Amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cell seeded scaffolds were shown to be potentially useful for wound healing.