Partial Quenching of Parametrical Tetragonality of a Chromium(III) Complex by Pressure Tuning

The ligand-field spectrum of [Cr(NH(3))(4)F(2)]AsF(6) has been pressure-tuned up to 100 kbar. The parametrical analysis shows that the absolute values of the two independent tetragonalities of the chromophoric ion both decrease with increasing isotropic pressure so that the molecular ion becomes more isotropic. Moreover, the Cr-N single bonds appear to be more compressible than the Cr-F bonds, for which it is parametrically clear that they have a partial multiple-bond character. While the spectrochemical parameter for F(-), Delta(F), increases with pressure, its two components Delta(sigma)(F) and Delta(pi)(F) decrease. It is confirmed that nephelauxetism increases with pressure.     

Characterisation and optimisation of an immunoprobe for triazines

The characterisation and optimisation of an optical immunoassay with label free detection based on Reflectometric Interference Spectroscopy (RIfS) is presented. The immunoprobe is operated in a sequential scheme, where Fab-fragments react with analyte molecules in a first step. In a second step the optical transducer is used to quantify the amount of unoccupied Fab- fragments in the reaction mixture binding to the hapten-modified transducer surface. For optimisation of the test, the Fab-fragment concentration was varied between 2x10(-8) mol/l and 2.5x 10(-9) mol/l. Down to a concentration of 5x10(-9) mol/l a reduction in the limit of detection has been observed. At the lowest concentration investigated no further improvement has been found due to a reduced binding of the analyte and a strong decrease of antibody binding at the transducer surface. This finding could be explained by the thermodynamics of the antigen-antibody reaction and the performance of the optical transducer used. The limit of detection obtained is discussed with respect to thermodynamics, transducer characteristics and immunoprobe test format.