Synthesis of silver nanoprisms in formamide

Polygonal (mainly triangular) silver nanoprisms were prepared by reducing silver perchlorate in formamide in the presence of polyethylene glycol (PEG) at room temperature. The reduction of silver ions by formamide leads to the deposition of arrays of triangular shaped silver nanoparticles on the glass walls of the container, accompanied by evolution of CO2 gas. In the presence of poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP) and PEG (1:1), both nanospheres and nanoprisms are formed.     

A hybrid technique of orthonormality constrained orbital optimization in SCF calculations

A recently proposed orthonormality constrained orbital optimization technique is operationally modified further by coupling it to a gradient biased method, namely the steepest descent procedure of McWeeny. The hybrid technique developed in this way is shown to have better convergence properties in closed and unrestricted open-shell calculations. The technique can be adapted to MCSCF procedures as well. The important role played by "orbital symmetries" in the operation of the method is analysed. Similarities and differences of the present method with the orthogonal gradient method are pointed out. Possible avenues of circumventing convergence difficulty that one may encounter in pathological cases, particularly in ab initio calculations involving extended basis set, are suggested.     

On a new partitioning of the Hamiltonian in many-body calculation of pair-correlation energies in closed-shell systems

We introduce here a new partitioning of the Hamiltonian in calculating pair-correlation energies using many-body perturbation theory, by which we are able to eliminate the off-diagonal particle–hole (p–h) ladders exactly to all orders in the perturbation expansion. In this formulation, the particle states turn out to be different for each distinct pair of hole states in the correlation energy calculation. We have also included the contributions of the diagonal particle–particle (p–p) and hole–hole ladders exactly to all orders. The effect of the off-diagonal p–p ladders has been estimated for each pair by computing the third-, foruth- and fifth-order energies. For highly symmetric systems the present partitioning yields in general symmetry-broken orbitals. Here one may use an average kind of partitioning for all the partners of the degenerate sets, which restores the symmetry and at the same time ensures cancellation of the p–h ladders exactly at the lowest order and approximately at the higher orders. Results are presented for a selection of 6π-electron conjugated systems. The correlation energy for each pair is in excellent agreement with that obtained from a partial CI calculation involving all double excitations from this pair. The advantages of implementing the present scheme in larger systems has been discussed.     

Unusual features of micellar diffusion

Diffusion coefficients of tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide in aqueous solutions have been determined at 25, 95 and 135 °C using the Taylor dispersion technique. The diffusion coefficient exhibits a minimum at a surfactant concentration above the critical micelle concentration (CMC). The results are interpreted in terms of electrostatic coupling and rapid exchange between micelle, surfactant monomer and counterions.     

Thermodynamic stability of CaThF6(cr) by transpiration and e.m.f. techniques

In the present paper, we report the standard molar Gibbs energy of formation for CaThF₆ measured by gas equilibration and e.m.f. methods. The HF(g) vapour pressure over the equilibrium reaction: \({\text{CaThF}}_{6} \left( {\text{cr}} \right) + 2 {\text{H}}_{ 2} {\text{O}}\left( {\text{g}} \right) = {\text{CaF}}_{2} \left( {\text{cr}} \right) + {\text{ThO}}_{2} \left( {\text{cr}} \right) + 4{\text{HF}}\left( {\text{g}} \right)\) has been measured using transpiration technique. The above reaction mechanism has been established employing TG and XRD techniques. A fluoride e.m.f. cell: (−)Pt, CaF₂(cr) + ThOF₂(cr) + CaThF₆(cr) |CaF₂(cr)| NiO(cr) + NiF₂(cr), Pt(+) has been constructed to measure Gibbs energy of formation of CaThF₆ (cr) using CaF₂ (cr) as a solid electrolyte. The isobaric heat capacity \({\text{Cp}}_{\text{m}}^{{\circ }} \left( T \right)\) of the compound has been measured using differential scanning calorimetric technique. Based on the experimental results, thermodynamic functions for CaThF₆ have been generated.

     

Application of a spin-adapted coupled-cluster based linear response theory: Direct calculation of π -π* singlet and triplet excitation energies of conjugated systems

A procedure is tested for directly calculating exciation energies for spin-conserving and spin-forbidden transitions using a spin-adapted coupled-cluster based linear response theory. The excited states are generated from the ground state through an excitation operator S, a combination of various nh—np excitations of spin-rank zero and one for singlet and triplet excitations.