Co-sensitization of organic dyes for efficient ionic liquid electrolyte-based dye-sensitized solar cells

The co-sensitization of two organic dyes (SQ1 and JK2), which are complementary in their spectral responses, shows enhanced photovoltaic performance compared with that of an individual organic dye-sensitized solar cell. The power conversion efficiency of the co-sensitized organic dye solar cell based on the newly developed binary ionic liquid (solvent-free) electrolyte gives 6.4% under AM 1.5 sunlight at 100 mW/cm2 irradiation, which is higher than that of individual dye-sensitized solar cells. The incident monochromatic photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of the co-sensitized solar cell shows typical absorption peaks at 530 and 650 nm corresponding to the two dyes and displays a broad spectral response over the entire visible spectrum with IPCE of >40% in the 400-700 nm wavelength domain.     

Versatile flow injection manifold for analytical calibration

A flow injection calibration system, originally designed and tested in our laboratory, is presented here as a versatile analytical tool serving for calibration purposes. It is characterized by a simple construction, easy operation and the possibility of offering rich measurement information with the use of a single standard solution. It is shown that depending on instrumental conditions and the composition of the calibration solutions the manifold is able to realize various calibration procedures according to interpolative, extrapolative and integration modes. As an experimental example, the determination of calcium in the cabbage sample by flame atomic absorption spectrometry has been calibrated by means of dilution method (DM) in the integration mode.     

Intrinsic electrophilic properties of nucleosides: photoelectron spectroscopy of their parent anions

The nucleoside parent anions 2(')-deoxythymidine(-), 2(')-deoxycytidine(-), 2(')-deoxyadenosine(-), uridine(-), cytidine(-), adenosine(-), and guanosine(-) were generated in a novel source, employing a combination of infrared desorption, electron photoemission, and a gas jet expansion. Once mass selected, the anion photoelectron spectrum of each of these was recorded. In the three cases in which comparisons were possible, the vertical detachment energies and likely adiabatic electron affinities extracted from these spectra agreed well with the values calculated both by Richardson et al. [J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 4404 (2004)] and by Li et al. [Radiat. Res. 165, 721 (2006)]. Through the combination of our experimental results and their theoretical calculations, several implications emerge. (1) With the possible exception of dG(-), the parent anions of nucleosides exist, and they are stable. (2) These nucleoside anions are valence anions, and in most cases the negative charge is closely associated with the nucleobase moiety. (3) The nucleoside parent anions we have generated and studied are the negative ions of canonical, neutral nucleosides, similar to those found in DNA.     

Structures, energetics, and spectra of aqua-cesium (I) complexes: an ab initio and experimental study

The design of cesium-selective ionophores must include the nature of cesium-water interactions. The authors have carried out extensive ab initio and density functional theory calculations of hydrated cesium cations to obtain reasonably accurate energetics, thermodynamic quantities, and IR spectra. An extensive search was made to find the most stable structures. Since water...water interactions are important in the aqua-Cs+ clusters, the authors investigated the vibrational frequency shifts as a function of the number of water molecules and the frequency characteristics with and without the presence of outer-shell water molecules. The predicted vibrational frequencies were then compared with the infrared photodissociation spectra of argon-tagged hydrated cesium cluster ions. This comparison allowed the identification of specific hydrogen-bonding structures present in the experimental spectra.     

Hair analysis for methamphetamine, ketamine, morphine and codeine by cation-selective exhaustive injection and sweeping micellar electrokinetic chromatography

This article presents the state of the art of qualitative analysis in the framework of the chromatographic analysis. After establishing the differences between two main classes of qualitative analysis (analyte identification and sample classification/qualification) the particularities of instrumental qualitative analysis are commented on. Qualitative chromatographic analysis for sample classification/qualification through the so-called chromatographic fingerprint (for complex samples) or the volatiles profile (through the direct coupling headspace-mass spectrometry using the chromatograph as interface) is discussed. Next, more technical exposition of the qualitative chromatographic information is presented supported by a variety of representative examples.     

Weakly automorphism invariant modules and essential tightness

While a module is pseudo-injective if and only if it is automorphism-invariant, it was not known whether automorphism-invariant modules are tight. It is shown that weakly automorphism-invariant modules are precisely essentially tight. We give various examples of weakly automorphism-invariant and essentially tight modules and study their properties. Some particular results: (1) R is a semiprime right and left Goldie ring if and only if every right (left) ideal is weakly injective if and only if every right (left) ideal is weakly automorphism invariant; (2) R is a CEP-ring if and only if R is right artinian and every indecomposable projective right R-module is uniform and essentially R-tight.     

Determinantal representations of smooth cubic surfaces

For every smooth (irreducible) cubic surface S we give an explicit construction of a representative for each of the 72 equivalence classes of determinantal representations. Equivalence classes (under GL₃ × GL₃ action by left and right multiplication) of determinantal representations are in one to one correspondence with the sets of six mutually skew lines on S and with the 72 (two-dimensional) linear systems of twisted cubic curves on S. Moreover, if a determinantal representation M corresponds to lines (a ₁,...,a ₆) then its transpose M ^t corresponds to lines (b ₁,...,b ₆) which together form a Schläfli’s double-six \(a_1\ldots a_6 \choose b_1\ldots b_6\) . We also discuss the existence of self-adjoint and definite determinantal representation for smooth real cubic surfaces. The number of these representations depends on the Segre type F _i . We show that a surface of type F _i , i = 1,2,3,4 has exactly 2(i?1) nonequivalent self-adjoint determinantal representations none of which is definite, while a surface of type F ₅ has 24 nonequivalent self-adjoint determinantal representations, 16 of which are definite.