Catalytic activity of carbon-supported iridium oxide for oxygen reduction reaction as a Pt-free catalyst in polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Iridium oxide supported on Vulcan XC-72 carbon black (IrO₂/C) as a cathode catalyst for polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement. The IrO₂ particles were 8-160 nm in diameter. The oxygen electroreduction activity was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV). It was found that IrO₂/C had high oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. The performance of the membrane electrode assemble (MEA) was also tested in a single PEFC and showed that IrO₂/C catalyst would be potential candidates for use as cathode catalyst in PEFC.     

Iron-Catalyzed Biomimetic Dimerization of Tryptophan-Containing Peptides

Biomimetic oxidative dimerization of tryptophan derivatives in aqueous media with oxygen as a bulk oxidant catalyzed by an iron octacarboxy phthalocyanine complex was established. The discovery of the extremely active iron catalyst enables aerobic enzyme-mimetic oxidation to be performed in a flask. This method was applicable to the oxidative dimerization of a wide range of tryptophan derivatives, including various dipeptides and oligopeptides, with remarkable functional-group tolerance without the protection of the amino acid residues. Furthermore, oxidative dimerization of tryptophan derivatives bearing dioxopiperazine units enabled the convergent total synthesis of five natural pyrroloindole compounds and unnatural congeners. The established chemical method provides facile access to a broad range of dimerized peptides with a unique scaffold to link two turn structures, which will serve as a powerful tool to create new small- and medium-sized-molecules as drug candidates.     

Theoretical study on quantum dynamics of bose system interacting with photon field

We investigate the quantum dynamics of two‐boson and two‐level systems interacting with a one‐mode photon field. The time evolution of the population for each state is calculated in terms of the Jaynes–Cummings model. We find the collapses and revivals of the order parameter for the Bose–Einstein condensation. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem 84: 401–408, 2001     

Energetic properties of nio surface examined by heat-of-adsorption measurement

Heat of adsorption and isotherm of water vapor on NiO samples were measured simultaneously at 301 K to examine the energetic properties of the surface. They revealed that NiO has a relatively uniform surface. The heat of adsorption ranging 80–90 kJ·mol^–1 indicates the production of surface hydroxyl groups on the (100) plane of NiO. It is relatively small compared with that of other metal oxides, which suggests a weak nature of the Ni²⁺ ion sites for chemisorption of water. It is suspected that half of the surface Ni²⁺ ions are covered with hydroxyl groups and the remainings act as relatively strong physisorption sites for water molecules.The authors are grateful for the help of Prof. S. Kittaka of Okayama University of Science in taking electron micrographs. This work was partly supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 02640348 from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japanese Government.     

Electronic structures of the highest occupied molecular orbital bands of a pentacene ultrathin film

We report the energy dispersions of the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO)-derived bands of a pentacene (Pn) thin film, whose in-plane structure resembles closely that of the ab plane of a low-density bulk Pn phase. Our present photoemission result indicates that the overlap of the pi-orbitals of adjacent Pn molecules is larger than what was expected from theoretical calculations. Further, of the two HOMO-derived bands, the large dispersion width of the band with higher binding energy suggests that this one mainly contributes to the bandlike charge transport in a Pn crystal.     

Peroxidase activity enhancement of horse cytochrome c by dimerization

The peroxidase activity of horse cytochrome c was enhanced by its dimerization, where its Compound III (oxy-form) and Compound I (oxoferryl porphyrin π-cation radical) species were detected in the reactions with hydrogen peroxide and meta-chloroperbenzoic acid, respectively. These results show that oligomeric cytochrome c can contribute as a proapoptotic conformer by the increased peroxidase activity.     

Influence of halogen substituents on the catalytic oxidation of 2,4,6-halogenated phenols by Fe(III)-tetrakis(p-hydroxyphenyl) porphyrins and potassium monopersulfate

The influence of halogen substituents on the catalytic oxidation of 2,4,6-trihalogenated phenols (TrXPs) by iron(III)-porphyrin/KHSO? catalytic systems was investigated. Iron(III)-5,10,15,20-tetrakis(p-hydroxyphenyl)porphyrin (FeTHP) and its supported variants were employed, where the supported catalysts were synthesized by introducing FeTHP into hydroquinone-derived humic acids via formaldehyde poly-condensation. F (TrFP), Cl (TrCP), Br (TrBP) and I (TrIP) were examined as halogen substituents for TrXPs. Although the supported catalysts significantly enhanced the degradation and dehalogenation of TrFP and TrCP, the oxidation of TrBP and TrIP was not enhanced, compared to the FeTHP catalytic system. These results indicate that the degree of oxidation of TrXPs is strongly dependent on the types of halogen substituent. The order of dehalogenation levels for halogen substituents in TrXPs was F > Cl > Br > I, consistent with their order of electronegativity. The electronegativity of a halogen substituent affects the nucleophilicity of the carbon to which it is attached. The levels of oxidation products in the reaction mixtures were analyzed by GC/MS after extraction with n-hexane. The most abundant dimer product from TrFP via 2,6-difluoroquinone is consistent with a scenario where TrXP, with a more electronegative halogen substituent, is readily oxidized, while less electronegative halogen substituents are oxidized less readily by iron(III)-porphyrin/KHSO? catalytic systems.     

Improved pose and affinity predictions using different protocols tailored on the basis of data availability

The D3R 2015 grand drug design challenge provided a set of blinded challenges for evaluating the applicability of our protocols for pose and affinity prediction. In the present study, we report the application of two different strategies for the two D3R protein targets HSP90 and MAP4K4. HSP90 is a well-studied target system with numerous co-crystal structures and SAR data. Furthermore the D3R HSP90 test compounds showed high structural similarity to existing HSP90 inhibitors in BindingDB. Thus, we adopted an integrated docking and scoring approach involving a combination of both pharmacophoric and heavy atom similarity alignments, local minimization and quantitative structure activity relationships modeling, resulting in the reasonable prediction of pose [with the root mean square deviation (RMSD) values of 1.75 Å for mean pose 1, 1.417 Å for the mean best pose and 1.85 Å for the mean all poses] and affinity (ROC AUC = 0.702 at 7.5 pIC50 cut-off and R = 0.45 for 180 compounds). The second protein, MAP4K4, represents a novel system with limited SAR and co-crystal structure data and little structural similarity of the D3R MAP4K4 test compounds to known MAP4K4 ligands. For this system, we implemented an exhaustive pose and affinity prediction protocol involving docking and scoring using the PLANTS software which considers side chain flexibility together with protein–ligand fingerprints analysis assisting in pose prioritization. This protocol through fares poorly in pose prediction (with the RMSD values of 4.346 Å for mean pose 1, 4.69 Å for mean best pose and 4.75 Å for mean all poses) and produced reasonable affinity prediction (AUC = 0.728 at 7.5 pIC50 cut-off and R = 0.67 for 18 compounds, ranked 1st among 80 submissions).