Determination of Sulfide in Spring and Wastewater by a New Kinetic Spectrophotometric Method

A simple, rapid, and sensitive method has been developed for the determination of trace amounts of sulfide based on its reaction with thionine. The reaction is monitored spectrophotometrically by measuring the decreasing absorbance of the dyestuff at 600 nm by the fixed time method. After optimization of the measuring conditions the calibration curves were found linear up to 38.0 ppm (four regions), and the theoretical limit of detection was 0.076 ppm and the relative standard deviation for determination of 1.0 ppm sulfide (n = 10) was found to be 2.7%. The proposed method was applied successfully to the determination of sulfide in spring water and wastewater samples.     

Thermal analysis of a binary base fluid in pool boiling system of glycol–water alumina nano-suspension

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The main aim of the present research is to measure the nucleate boiling heat transfer coefficient (BHTC) of aqueous glycol nano-suspension as a coolant...     

Inequalities for real number sequences with applications in spectral graph theory

Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal - Let a = (a1,a2, …, an) be a nonincreasing sequence of positive real numbers. Denote by S = {1, 2, …, n} the index set and by Jk = {I = {r1, r2,...     

Electrochemistry of hydrogen peroxide reduction reaction on carbon paste electrodes modified by Ag- and Pt-supported carbon microspheres

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - A simple and facile hydrothermal methodology for preparation of carbon microspheres supported with silver or platinum is presented. Electrocatalytic...     

Aggregation behavior and intermicellar interactions of cationic Gemini surfactants: Effects of alkyl chain,spacer lengths and temperature

The aggregation behavior of the cationic Gemini surfactants C_mH_2m+1N(CH₃)₂(CH₂)_S (CH₃)₂ N C_mH_2m+1,2Br^? with m = 12, 14 and s = 2, 4 were studied by performing surface tension, electrical conductivity, pulsed field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFG-NMR), and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements over the temperature range 298 K to 323 K. The critical micelle concentration (CMC), surface excess (Г_max), mean molecular surface area (A_min), degree of counter ion dissociation (α), and the thermodynamic parameters of micellization were determined from the surface tension and conductance data. An enthalpy–entropy compensation effect was observed and all the plots of enthalpy–entropy compensation exhibit excellent linearity. The micellar self-diffusion coefficients (D_m) and intermicellar interaction parameters (k_d) were obtained from the PFG-NMR and CV measurements. These results are discussed in terms of the intermicellar interactions, the effects of the chain and spacer lengths on the micellar surface charge density, and the phase transition between spherical and rod geometries. The intermicellar interaction parameters were found to decrease slightly with increasing temperature for 14–4–14, which suggests that the micellar surface charge density decreases with increasing temperature. The mean values of the hydrodynamic radius, R_h, and the aggregation number, N_agg, of the Gemini surfactants’ m–4–m micelles were calculated from the micellar self-diffusion coefficient. Moreover, the N_agg values were calculated theoretically. The experimental values of N_agg increase with increases in the chain length and are in good agreement with both previous results and our theoretical results.     

Can anion interaction accelerate transformation of cytosine tautomers? Detailed view form QTAIM analysis

The relative stabilities and noncovalent interactions of the six low-lying energy tautomers of cytosine nucleobase with some biological anions (such as F^?, Cl^?, and CN^?) have been investigated in gas phase by density functional theory (DFT) method in conjunction with 6-311++G (d,p) atomic basis set. Furthermore, to systematically investigate all possible tautomerisms from cytosine induced by proton transfer, we describe a study of structural tautomer interconversion in the gas phase and in a continuum solvent using DFT calculation. We carried out geometrical optimizations with the integral equation formalism of polarizable continuum (IEF-PCM) model to account for the solvent effect, and the results were compared with those in the gas phase. The result of calculation revealed that anions bind mostly in a bidentate manner via hydrogen bond, and stabilization energies of these complexes are larger than those in the case when anions bind in a monodentate manner. The quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM), natural bonding orbital (NBO) and energy decomposition analysis (EDA) have also been applied to understand the nature of hydrogen bond interactions in these complexes. NBO analysis reveals that the interaction patterns between the anions and the tautomers are ??-type interaction between lone pairs and $ \sigma_{{_{{{\text{N}}--{\text{H}}}} }}^{*} $ , $ \sigma_{{_{{{\text{O}}--{\text{H}}}} }}^{*} $ and $ \sigma_{{_{{{\text{H}}--{\text{F}}}} }}^{*} $ antibonding orbitals. Also, according to these theories, the interactions are found to be partially electrostatic and partially covalent. EDA results identify that these bonds have less than 35% covalent character and more than 65% electrostatic, and the covalent character increases in different anions in the order F^??>?CN^??>?Cl^?. On the other hand, orbital interaction energies of complexes of F^? anion are more than those of Cl^? and CN^? complexes. The lower orbital interaction energies in complexes of Cl^? and CN^?anions imply less charge transfer and stronger ionic bond character. Furthermore, relationship between the orbital interaction energy (E ²) with hydrogen bonding energy (E _H···X) and the electron density (??(r)) with hydrogen bonding energy of F^?, Cl^? and CN^? complexes have also been investigated.     

Interactions of glutathione tripeptide with gold cluster: influence of intramolecular hydrogen bond on complexation behavior

Understanding the nature of the interaction between metal nanoparticles and biomolecules has been important in the development and design of sensors. In this paper, structural, electronic, and bonding properties of the neutral and anionic forms of glutathione tripeptide (GSH) complexes with a Au(3) cluster were studied using the DFT-B3LYP with 6-31+G**-LANL2DZ mixed basis set. Binding of glutathione with the gold cluster is governed by two different kinds of interactions: Au-X (X = N, O, and S) anchoring bond and Au···H-X nonconventional hydrogen bonding. The influence of the intramolecular hydrogen bonding of glutathione on the interaction of this peptide with the gold cluster has been investigated. To gain insight on the role of intramolecular hydrogen bonding on Au-GSH interaction, we compared interaction energies of Au-GSH complexes with those of cystein and glycine components. Our results demonstrated that, in spite of the ability of cystein to form highly stable metal-sulfide interaction, complexation behavior of glutathione is governed by its intramolecular backbone hydrogen bonding. The quantum theory of atom in molecule (QTAIM) and natural bond orbital analysis (NBO) have also been applied to interpret the nature of interactions in Au-GSH complexes. Finally, conformational flexibility of glutathione during complexation with the Au(3) cluster was investigated by means of monitoring Ramachandran angles.     

Growth-morphology-luminescence correlation in ZnO-containing nanostructures synthesized in different media

Zinc hydroxide particles were prepared by a two-step process employing zinc nitrate hexahydrate, urea, ethylene glycol, water and p-toluene-sulfonic acid monohydrate (p-TSA). We used different concentrations of the reactants as well as different volume ratios of the solvents. ZnO particles were obtained by thermal treatment of the reaction products at two different temperatures: 350 °C and 500 °C. The samples were characterized by scanning field emission electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, BET analysis, thermogravimetry (TG) analysis and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. It was found that after the thermal treatment particles become smaller, with the p-TSA concentration strongly affecting the morphology of the particles. Luminescence properties of the samples probed by PL at 8 K and room temperature exhibited a remarkable correlation with specimens′ nanomorphology. Luminescent features at ～2.0–2.2 eV, ～2.4–2.5 eV, ～2.65 eV, ～2.9 eV, ～3.0–3.1 eV and ～3.3 eV were observed in most specimens, although their relative intensity and temperature dependence were specific to an individual group of samples vis-à-vis their growth history and morphology.