Synthesis of Functionalized Mono‐, Bis‐, and Trisethynyltriptycenes for One‐Dimensional Self‐Assembly on Surfaces

This paper describes the synthesis of triptycene‐based building blocks that are able to interact through hydrogen bonds to form one‐dimensional self‐assembled motifs on surfaces. We designed 9,10‐diethynyltriptycene derivatives functionalized at the ethynyl end groups by a variety of hydrogen‐bonding groups for homomolecular recognition and complementary building blocks for heteromolecular recognition. We also present the synthesis of bis‐ and trisethynyltriptycenes with terminal alkyne functional groups available for on‐surface azide–alkyne cycloaddition reaction to expand the potential of the triptycene building block.     

Non-invasive vibrational SFG spectroscopy reveals that bacterial adhesion can alter the conformation of grafted "brush" chains on SAM

Understanding bacterial adhesion on a surface is a crucial step to design new materials with improved properties or to control biofilm formation and eradication. Sum Frequency Generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy has been employed to study in situ the conformational response of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of octadecanethiol (ODT) on a gold film to the adhesion of hydrophilic and hydrophobic ovococcoid model bacteria. The present work highlights vibrational SFG spectroscopy as a powerful and unique non-invasive biophysical technique to probe and control bacteria interaction with ordered surfaces. Indeed, the SFG vibrational spectral changes reveal different ODT SAM conformations in air and upon exposure to aqueous solution or bacterial adhesion. Furthermore, this effect depends on the bacterial cell surface properties. The SFG spectral modeling demonstrates that hydrophobic bacteria flatten the ODT SAM alkyl chain terminal part, whereas the hydrophilic ones raise this ODT SAM terminal part. Microorganism-induced alteration of grafted chains can thus affect the desired interfacial functionality, a result that should be considered for the design of new reactive materials.     

Simultaneous separation and analysis of water- and fat-soluble vitamins on multi-modal reversed-phase weak anion exchange material by HPLC-UV

Several methods for the separation of vitamins on HPLC columns were already validated in the last 20 years. However, most of the techniques focus on separating either fat- or water-soluble vitamins and only few methods are intended to separate lipophilic and hydrophilic vitamins simultaneously. A mixed-mode reversed-phase weak anion exchange (RP-WAX) stationary phase was developed in our laboratory in order to address such mixture of analytes with different chemical characteristics, which are difficult to separate on standard columns. The high versatility in usage of the RP-WAX chromatographic material allowed a baseline separation of ten vitamins within a single run, seven water-soluble and three fat-soluble, using three different chromatographic modes: some positively charged vitamins are eluted in ion exclusion and ion repulsion modes whereas the negatively charged molecules are eluted in the ion exchange mechanism. The non-charged molecules are eluted in a classical reversed-phase mode, regarding their polarities. The method was validated for the vitamin analysis in tablets, evaluating selectivity, robustness, linearity, accuracy, and precision. The validated method was finally employed for the analysis of the vitamin content of some commercially available supplement tablets.     

Selective conversion of {Mo132} Keplerate ion into 4-electron reduced crown-capped Keggin derivative [Te5Mo15O57](8-). A key intermediate to single-phase M1 multielement MoVTeO light-alkanes oxidation catalyst

{Mo(132)} Keplerate anion reacts with tellurites to give a soluble precursor to produce in hydrothermal conditions single-phase M1 MoVTeO light-alkanes oxidation catalyst. Characterization of this Te-containing intermediate by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, (125)Te NMR, UV-visible and redox titration reveals a molybdotellurite anion as a crown-capped Keggin derivative.     

Rotation Numbers of Discontinuous Orientation-Preserving Circle Maps

We extend a few well-known results about orientation preserving homeomorphisms of the circle to orientation preserving circle maps, allowing even an infinite number of discontinuities. We define a set-valued map associated to the lift by filling the gaps in the graph, that shares many properties with continuous functions. Using elementary set-valued analysis, we prove existence and uniqueness of the rotation number, periodic limit orbit in the case when the latter is rational, and Cantor structure of the unique limit set when the rotation number is irrational. Moreover, the rotation number is found to be continuous with respect to the set-valued extension if we endow the space of such maps with the Haussdorff topology on the graph. For increasing continuous families of such maps, the set of parameter values where the rotation number is irrational is a Cantor set (up to a countable number of points).     

Portraits of some representatives of metal boride carbide and boride silicide compounds

Different ternary alkaline-earth and rare-earth metal boron carbide and silicide compounds are examined using the solid-state language of Zintl-Klemm concept, band structures, and density of states, in order to show that the topology of the non-metal sub-lattice is highly dependent on the electron count. It is also shown that the chemistry of rare-earth metal-boron-silicon does not parallel that of rare-earth metal-boron-carbon. B-C bonds are easily formed in the latter, leading to a large variety of different structural arrangements, whereas Si-B bonds are hardly observed in the former, except in insertion compounds.     

Convergence of the wave equation damped on the interior to the one damped on the boundary

In this paper, we study the convergence of the wave equation with variable internal damping term γn(x)ut to the wave equation with boundary damping γ(x)⊗δx∈∂Ωut when (γn(x)) converges to γ(x)⊗δx∈∂Ω in the sense of distributions. When the domain Ω in which these equations are defined is an interval in R, we show that, under natural hypotheses, the compact global attractor of the wave equation damped on the interior converges in X=H¹(Ω)×L²(Ω) to the one of the wave equation damped on the boundary, and that the dynamics on these attractors are equivalent. We also prove, in the higher-dimensional case, that the attractors are lower-semicontinuous in X and upper-semicontinuous in H1−ε(Ω)×H−ε(Ω).