Nickel as a chemical modifier for sensitivity enhancement and fast atomization processes in electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometric determination of cadmium in biological and environmental samples.

A systematic study of the efficiency of protons, Ni, Pd and Th as chemical modifiers for the determination of cadmium by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) using fast temperature programs was made for platform atomization. A comparison was made in terms of the salt type, absorbance-time profiles and elimination of the sodium chloride interference. The results were adapted to develop a method for the ETAAS determination of cadmium in biological and environmental samples. The highest sensitivity to determine cadmium in biological and environmental samples was obtained using nickel (together with protons) as a chemical modifier. The accuracy of the method was tested by the determination of cadmium in different certified reference materials. The best detection limit and the characteristic mass of Cd were found to be 0.03 ng mL(-1) and 0.35 pg, respectively.     

Absorption of cnoidal electromagnetic waves by superlattice electrons in the process of impurity ionization

Absorption of cnoidal electromagnetic waves, which are the most general periodic solution to the sine-Gordon equation, by electrons of a one-dimensional quantum semiconductor superlattice in the process of impurity ionization is studied in terms of the semiclassical approximation. The dependence of the absorption coefficient on the electric field of an electromagnetic wave is found to be nonmonotone with a pronounced peak.     

Classification of the energy levels of the cyclopentane molecule

The energy levels of the cyclopentane molecule are classified taking into account pseudorotation and inversion motion caused by the nonplanarity of the equilibrium configuration of the five-membered cycle of the carbon nuclei of the molecule. For this purpose, the relatively recently developed symmetry-group chain methods, which are the most powerful methods at present, are used.     

Sound scattering by a body in a planar layered waveguide

In the framework of the theory of integral equations, the problem of sound diffraction by pressure-release and acoustically stiff inhomogeneities of an oceanic waveguide is considered. The iteration method is used to obtain recurrent relations for the surface currents. The relations describe the diffraction process as a sequence of interactions between the body and the waveguide boundaries (multiple reflections). The validity condition for the zero-order approximation, which ignores multiple reflections, is formulated and physically justified.     

Synthesis and characterization of poly(methyl methacrylate)‐block‐poly(methylphenylsilane)‐ block‐poly(methyl methacrylate) by atom transfer radical polymerization

ABA block copolymers of methyl methacrylate and methylphenylsilane were synthesized with a methodology based on atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The reaction of samples of α,ω‐dihalopoly(methylphenylsilane) with 2‐hydroxyethyl‐2‐methyl‐2‐bromoproprionate gave suitable macroinitiators for the ATRP of methyl methacrylate. The latter procedure was carried out at 95 °C in a xylene solution with CuBr and 2,2‐bipyridine as the initiating system. The rate of the polymerization was first‐order with respect to monomer conversion. The block copolymers were characterized with ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy and size exclusion chromatography, and differential scanning calorimetry was used to obtain preliminary evidence of phase separation in the copolymer products. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 30–40, 2003