Practical reduction of imines by NaBH4/alumina under solvent-free conditions： An efficient route to secondary amine

Sodium borohydride supported on alumina reduces imines to the corresponding secondary amines in high to excellent isolated yields under solvent-free conditions. Noteworthy is that highly chemoselective reactions were achieved in the presence of other functional groups such as halogen, nitro, and cyano groups.     

Sensitive Electrochemical Prostate Specific Antigen Aptasensor: Effect of Carboxylic Acid Functionalized Carbon Nanotube and Glutaraldehyde Linker

The performance of carboxylic acid functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs_(COOH)), chitosan (Chit), carbon nanotubes‐chitosan (CNTs‐Chit and CNTs_(COOH)‐Chit) for immobilizing of amino‐functionalized ssDNA and fabrication of electrochemical prostate specific antigen (PSA) aptasensor were studied in detail using X‐ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The assemblies of capture probe are formed on the surface via two approaches: EDC/NHS chemistry and glutaraldehyde linker. Cyclic voltammetry (CV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) and EIS techniques were used to investigate the analytical performance of the PSA aptasensor. Under optimum conditions the sensitivity of 0.0026 µA/(ng/ml) and a limit of detection of 0.75 ng/ml (22 pM) were obtained for PSA detection. This protocol offers a new means for sensitive detection of PSA with some advantages in terms of simplicity, selectivity, ease of use and regenerability.     

Spectrophotometric study of interaction and solubilization of procaine hydrochloride in micellar systems

The interaction of Procaine hydrochloride (PC) with cationic, anionic and non-ionic surfactants; cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and triton X-100, were investigated. The effect of ionic and non-ionic micelles on solubilization of Procaine in aqueous micellar solution of SDS, CTAB and triton X-100 were studied at pH 6.8 and 29°C using absorption spectrophotometry. By using pseudo-phase model, the partition coefficient between the bulk water and micelles, K_x, was calculated. The results showed that the micelles of CTAB enhanced the solubility of Procaine higher than SDS micelles (K_x = 96 and 166 for SDS and CTAB micelles, respectively) but triton X-100 did not enhanced the solubility of drug because of weak interaction with Procaine. From the resulting binding constant for Procaine-ionic surfactants interactions (K_b = 175 and 128 for SDS and CTAB surfactants, respectively), it was concluded that both electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions affect the interaction of surfactants with cationic procaine. Electrostatic interactions have a great role in the binding and consequently distribution of Procaine in micelle/water phases. These interactions for anionic surfactant (SDS) are higher than for cationic surfactant (CTAB). Gibbs free energy of binding and distribution of procaine between the bulk water and studied surfactant micelles were calculated.      

High-throughput quantification of palladium in water samples by ion pair based-surfactant assisted microextraction

A novel method for the determination of palladium as a metal ion model was developed by ion pair based surfactant-assisted microextraction (IP-SAME) and inductively coupled plasma-optical detection (ICP-OES). In this methodology, a cationic surfactant was used in extraction process. It has two fundamental functions: (1) the formation of an emulsified phase and (2) the ion pair formation with Pd(II) in the presence of iodide ions and making PdI₄²⁻$\text{Pd}{{\text{I}}_4}^{2-}$ extractable into organic phase (active microextraction). The effective parameters on the extraction recovery such as the types of extraction solvent and the surfactant, surfactant concentration, KI amount and HCl concentration of the sample were investigated and optimized. In the proposed approach, tetradecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (TTAB) was used as emulsifier and ion pairing agent, and 1-octanol was selected as extraction solvent. Under the optimum conditions, the enhancement factor as large as 146 was obtained. The detection limit for palladium was 0.2 μg L⁻¹, and the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 4.1% (n = 5, C = 10.0 μg L⁻¹). The proposed method was applied for extraction and determination of palladium in different water samples.     

The effect of basecoat pigmentation on mechanical properties of an automotive basecoat/clearcoat system during weathering

The aim of this study is to elucidate the effect of basecoat pigmentation on mechanical aspects of an automotive basecoat/clearcoat (BC/CC) system during artificial weathering exposures. A silver basecoat as the most reflective and a black basecoat as the most absorptive basecoat were selected. These two extreme behaviored basecoats were chosen with hopes that other basecoats would behave somewhere between the silver and the black extremes. The structural and mechanical properties of the coatings were investigated after various weathering exposure times (0, 150, 300, 450, 600 h). Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) was carried out to study variations in structure and basic characteristics of the system such as cross-linking density and T_g during weathering. In order to investigate variations in mechanical properties of the system, nano indentation, nano scratch, and tensile tests were also utilized.It was found that although both silver and black systems experienced post-curing reactions (dominant at earlier stages of weathering) and degradation reactions (dominant at later stages of weathering), but basecoat pigmentation affected the post-curing and degradation reaction rates of the BC/CC system, leading to variations in mechanical properties. It was concluded that post-curing occurred to a greater extent in the black pigmented system whilst in the silver pigmented system weathering degradation was much more sever.     

Tuning the electronic‐optical properties of porphyrin‐like porous C24N24 fullerene with (Li3O)n = (1–5) decoration. A computational study

Using DFT methods, the electronic properties and the first hyperpolarizabilities of porphyrin‐like porous C₂₄N₂₄ fullerene decorated with (Li₃O)_{n = (1–5)} have been systematically investigated. It is found that Li₃O molecules can effectively be adsorbed over N4 cavities of C₂₄N₂₄ with high interaction energies. This interaction is found to narrow the HOMO‐LUMO gap and work function values of C₂₄N₂₄. Thus its electronic properties are strongly sensitive to interaction with the Li₃O molecules. Indeed, compared with the sole parent C₂₄N₂₄ fullerene, (Li₃O)_{n = (1–5)}@C₂₄N₂₄ possess large first hyperpolarizabilities (β₀ ). Obviously, the Li₃O superalkali chemisorbed over C₂₄N₂₄ fullerene exhibit not only excellent stability but also large first hyperpolarizability. Therefore, they are expected to be potential innovative candidates for excellent electro‐optical materials.     

Design,synthesis, biological evaluation,and docking study of new acridine-9-carboxamide linked to 1,2,3-triazole derivatives as antidiabetic agents targeting α-glucosidase

A new series of acridine-9-carboxamide-1,2,3-triazole derivatives 7a-m were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as novel α-glucosidase inhibitors. Acridine-9-carboxamide-1,2,3-triazole scaffold has been designed by combination of effective moieties from potent α-glucosidase inhibitors. Most of the synthesized compounds were more potent than standard inhibitor acarbose. Among the title compounds, the most potent compounds were compounds 7j , 7k , and 7a with IC₅₀ values of 120.2 ± 1.0, 151.1 ± 1.4, and 157.6 ± 1.6 μM, respectively (IC₅₀ value of acarbose = 750.0 ± 10.0 μM). Docking study of the most potent compounds demonstrated that these compounds formed stable complexes with α-glucosidase active site. Anti-α-amylase assay of compounds 7j , 7k , and 7a was performed and no activity was observed. in vitro cytotoxicity assay of the latter compounds revealed that these compounds were not cytotoxic toward human normal (HDF) and cancer (MCF-7) cell lines. ADME and toxicity prediction of compounds 7j , 7k , and 7a were also performed.     

High diffraction efficiency in SBN with applied fields near the coercive field

We present the experiments and results of our investigation of electrical fixing in SBN:60. We propose an optical method for determining the value of the coercive field in ferroelectric crystals. An interferometric method is used to map the change in the index of refraction with negative applied fields, where the minimum of the index change is an indication of the coercive field. From this experiment, values of 1.55 kV±20 V for the coercive voltage and 147±6 pm/V for the linear electro-optic coefficient are found. Two electrical-fixing techniques that result in very high diffraction efficiencies are presented, discussed and compared to previous publications on electrical fixing in SBN. High diffraction efficiencies of about 95% were achieved with the application of negative fields near the coercive region, during and after holographic recording in the crystal. Received: 6 December 2000 / Revised version: 13 February 2001 / Published online: 27 April 2001     

Linking Morphology of Porous Media to Their Macroscopic Permeability by Deep Learning

Flow, transport, mechanical, and fracture properties of porous media depend on their morphology and are usually estimated by experimental and/or computational methods. The precision of the computational approaches depends on the accuracy of the model that represents the morphology. If high accuracy is required, the computations and even experiments can be quite time-consuming. At the same time, linking the morphology directly to the permeability, as well as other important flow and transport properties, has been a long-standing problem. In this paper, we develop a new network that utilizes a deep learning (DL) algorithm to link the morphology of porous media to their permeability. The network is neither a purely traditional artificial neural network (ANN), nor is it a purely DL algorithm, but, rather, it is a hybrid of both. The input data include three-dimensional images of sandstones, hundreds of their stochastic realizations generated by a reconstruction method, and synthetic unconsolidated porous media produced by a Boolean method. To develop the network, we first extract important features of the images using a DL algorithm and then feed them to an ANN to estimate the permeabilities. We demonstrate that the network is successfully trained, such that it can develop accurate correlations between the morphology of porous media and their effective permeability. The high accuracy of the network is demonstrated by its predictions for the permeability of a variety of porous media.