Solvent-free acetylation and tetrahydropyranylation of alcohols catalyzed by recyclable sulfonated ordered nanostructured carbon

Rapid and practical green acetylation and tetrahydropyranylation routes of structurally diverse alcohols and phenols were applied under solvent-free reaction conditions providing excellent yields, using catalytic amounts of environmentally friendly sulfonated ordered nanoporous carbon (CMK-5-SO₃H). Non-toxic nature of the catalyst, its easy handling, recovery and reusability, and the absence of any solvent characterize the presented procedures as efficient methods. These procedures provide methods for the separation of the product by simple filtration.     

Flow of second-order fluid in a curved duct with square cross-section

This paper investigates the inertial and creeping flow of a second-order fluid in a curved duct with a square cross-section. Numerical modeling is employed to analyze fluid flow, and the governing equations are discretized using the finite difference method on a staggered mesh. The marker-and-cell method is employed to allocate the parameters on the staggered mesh, and static pressure is calculated using the artificial compressibility approach. The effect of centrifugal force due to the curvature of the duct and the opposing effects of the first and second normal stress difference on the flow field are investigated. In addition, the order-of-magnitude technique is used to derive the force balance relations for the core region of flow. Based on these relations, the performance mechanism of centrifugal force and normal stress differences on the generation of secondary flows is considered. We also present an analytical relation for the axial velocity profile and flow resistance ratio of creeping flow. For this kind of flow, previous studies have investigated the effect of the first normal stress difference on the transition from one pair to two pairs of vortices while we show that the negative second normal stress difference has the opposite effect on this transition and can stabilize the flow.     

Selective and non-selective determination of heavy metal ions in flowing solutions by fast stripping cyclic voltammetry.

A simple and fast stripping voltammetric detection method has been designed for selective and non-selective measurements of heavy metal ions in a flow-injection system. A special computer numerical method is introduced for calculating the analyte signal and noise reduction, where the signal is calculated based on the partial and total charge exchange at electrode surface. For a selective determination, the currents are integrated in the range of the oxidation and reduction of the analyte. For non-selective measurements, the integration range is set for the whole potential scan range (including oxidation and reduction of the Au surface). The time for stripping has been shown to be less than 300 ms. The main advantages of the detection method are as follows: first, removal of oxygen from the measured solution is not required; second, it is sufficiently fast for the determination of heavy metal ions in various chromatographic analysis methods. The limit of detection for tested ions was between 3 x 10(-9) and 6 x 10(-10) M, and the relative standard deviation at 50 ppb Pb2+ was 4.7% for 10 runs.     

Quantum Dot-Based Biosensor for the Detection of Human T-Lymphotropic Virus-1

A method was developed to identify human T-lymphotropic virus-1 (HTLV-1) using cadmium–tellurium quantum dots. Two probes including the biotin-labeled acceptor and NH2-reporter probes with target DNA were hybridized. The resulted sandwich complex was immobilized on a well containing streptavidin. The quantum dot solution was added to the sandwich complex, conjugated with the amine group of reporter probe, and emission spectra of the quantum dots were recorded. The biosensor response was linear with HTLV-1 concentrations from 10 pg/µl to 0.24?ng/µl, with a detection limit of 19.5 pg/µl. The assay may be successfully used for detection of long nucleic acids.