Transient Spark Discharge Generated in Various N2/O2 Gas Mixtures: Reactive Species in the Gas and Water and Their Antibacterial Effects

Reactive species generated in the gas and in water by cold air plasma of the transient spark discharge in various N₂/O₂ gas mixtures (including pure N₂ and pure O₂) have been examined. The discharge was operated without/with circulated water driven down the inclined grounded electrode. Without water, NO and NO₂ are typically produced with maximum concentrations at 50% O₂. N₂O was also present for low O₂ contents (up to 20%), while O₃ was generated only in pure O₂. With water, gaseous NO and NO₂ concentrations were lower, N₂O was completely suppressed and HNO₂ increased; and O₃ was lowered in O₂ gas. All species production decreased with the gas flow rate increasing from 0.5 to 2.2 L/min. Liquid phase species (H₂O₂, NO₂￣, NO₃￣, ^·OH) were detected in plasma treated water. H₂O₂ reached the highest concentrations in pure N₂ and O₂. On the other hand, nitrites NO₂￣ and nitrates NO₃￣ peaked between 20 and 80% O₂ and were associated with pH reduction. The concentrations of all species increased with the plasma treatment time. Aqueous ^·OH radicals were analyzed by terephthalic acid fluorescence and their concentration correlated with H₂O₂. The antibacterial efficacy of the transient spark on bacteria in water increased with water treatment time and was found the strongest in the air-like mixture thanks to the peroxynitrite formation. Yet, significant antibacterial effects were found even in pure N₂ and in pure O₂ most likely due to high ^·OH radical concentrations. Controlling the N₂/O₂ ratio in the gas mixture, gas flow rate, and water treatment time enables tuning the antibacterial efficacy.

     

Bioorthogonal Turn-On BODIPY-Peptide Photosensitizers for Tailored Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) leads to cancer remission via the production of cytotoxic species under photosensitizer (PS) irradiation. However, concomitant damage and dark toxicity can both hinder its use. With this in mind, we have implemented a versatile peptide-based platform of bioorthogonally activatable BODIPY-tetrazine PSs. Confocal microscopy and phototoxicity studies demonstrated that the incorporation of the PS, as a bifunctional module, into a peptide enabled spatial and conditional control of singlet oxygen (¹O₂) generation. Comparing subcellular distribution, PS confined in the cytoplasmic membrane achieved the highest toxicities (IC₅₀=0.096±0.003 μm ) after activation and without apparent dark toxicity. Our tunable approach will inspire novel probes towards smart PDT.     

Flow-through amperometric methods for detection of the bioactive compound quercetin: performance of glassy carbon and screen-printed carbon electrodes

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Rapid methods using batch injection analysis (BIA) with amperometric detection were developed for the determination of quercetin extracted from the...     

Mild Solutions to Time Fractional Stochastic 2D-Stokes Equations with Bounded and Unbounded Delay

Journal of Dynamics and Differential Equations - In this paper, the well-posedness of stochastic time fractional 2D-Stokes equations of order $$\alpha \in (0,1)$$ containig finite or infinite delay...     

Characterization of the molecular deformation behavior of glassy epoxy resins by rheo-optical FTIR spectroscopy

Rheo-optical FTIR spectroscopy was used for the first time to monitor molecular orientation phenomena in highly crosslinked epoxies. After studying the orientation behavior of epoxy/amine networks during uniaxial deformation above their glass transition temperature in a preceding article, this article deals with the rheo-optical characterization of the deformation process of those epoxy systems below T_g. The orientation behavior is influenced by the different molecular structure of the constituents and the free volume entrapped in the resins. Yield strain and tensile modulus are correlated with the slope of the orientation function. The orientation function was found to show an abrupt change of its slope in the yield point region. This phenomenon is discussed with respect to the mechanism of plastic deformation. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Database Survey of Single-and-Half Phosphorus–Oxygen Bonds in Salts with the C2PO2 Segment: Crystal Structure of [NH2C5H4NH][(C6H5)2P(O)(O)]⋅2H2O

Crystallography Reports - For structures with a C2PO2 skeleton, a comparison of “single-and-half” phosphorus–oxygen bonds with single and double phosphorus–oxygen bonds is...     

Measuring the criticality of a Hopf bifurcation

Nonlinear Dynamics - This work is based on the observation that the first Poincaré–Lyapunov constant is a quadratic function of the coefficients of the two-dimensional vector field at a...     

Self-assembling and phase coexistence of SW trimers as complex amphiphile analogues. I. Simulations

We analyse by discrete molecular dynamics the self-assembly of SW trimer particles that contain a different number of attractive and repulsive spheres. They also have different geometries: linear, obtuse, rectangular and equilateral. We identify that some of these molecules exhibit liquid–vapour equilibria while others do not. For all of them, we show the morphological phase diagram built up from the different supra-molecular structures formed by each type of trimer. We simulated 14 different systems with a total of 321 states. The main features of the supra-molecular structures depend only on the composition and geometry of the trimer: triple SW trimers do not form supra-structures, double SW trimers and single SW trimers form monolayers, bilayers and worm-like micelles. The liquid–vapour coexistence properties are also exhibited. These trimers can be used to model complex amphiphiles beyond the standard ones, such as the Gemini and the Bola surfactants as well as colloidal particles.     

Simulation of the ion beam-plasma interaction processes for point-like ions in doped DT plasmas

The purpose of this work is to study the interaction between an ion beam and a doped deuterium-tritium (DT) plasma in a fast ignition nuclear fusion context. In order to analyze the influence of the dopants in the interaction process, we present a physical model to carry out spatial-temporal simulations of the stopping of an ion beam interacting with a doped plasma target, the plasma heating processes, and the formation of the ignition regions. We perform a set of numerical experiments where different concentrations of dopants are added to a fully ionized DT plasma. These simulations allow us to characterize the increase in the stopping power and the maximum temperatures achieved with the presence of impurities, as well as the reduction of the heated and ignition regions. This reduction in the ignition region indicates difficulties for the formation of an efficient hot spot when there are dopants in the DT plasma.