Cavitation--a novel technique for making stable nano-suspensions

The purpose of the present study was to obtain nano-scale particles of styrene butadiene rubber. As SBR particles are elastic in nature, conventional methods of size reductions such as impacting, grinding are unable to achieve the final size. So, attempts have been made here to make the nano-particles of the SBR using cavitation technique. Both acoustic and hydrodynamic cavitation techniques have been employed and studied. Hydrodynamic cavitation has been proved to be more energy efficient than the acoustic cavitation on the basis of various parameters. The maximum production rate equivalent to 2 kg/h (solid processing) has been achieved in the newly developed hydrodynamic cavitation set-up (made in house). Similar to transient cavitation, stable cavitation has also been shown to contribute for reduction in the size of the material with very low variation in size. This technique has been proved successful for the size-reduction of the elastic material to nano-scale, thus it may also be used for the size-reduction of the other brittle and hard material by adjusting various cavitational parameters.     

In vitro evaluation of antiproliferative effect of ethyl gallate against human oral squamous carcinoma cell line KB

Although some polyphenols are known to possess anticancer activity against different cancer cell lines through induction of apoptosis, the mode of antiproliferative effect of ethyl gallate against human oral squamous carcinoma cell line KB was not studied until now. Therefore, the antiproliferative effect of ethyl gallate was evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay in comparison with the reference drug paclitaxel. Generation of reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial membrane potential loss, DNA damage and apoptosis were determined using 2,7-diacetyldichlorofluorescein fluorescence, uptake of rhodamine-123 by mitochondria, comet assay and acridine orange/ethidium bromide dual-dye staining method. Both ethyl gallate and paclitaxel exhibited cytotoxicity in a dose-dependent manner. The 50% inhibitory concentration for ethyl gallate was 30 and 20 μg/mL for paclitaxel. A volume of 50 μg/mL of ethyl gallate was found to be significantly effective (P < 0.05) in controlling the cancer cell proliferation leading to acute apoptosis.     

Fenugreek hydrogel–agarose composite entrapped gold nanoparticles for acetylcholinesterase based biosensor for carbamates detection

A biosensor was fabricated to detect pesticides in food samples. Acetylcholinesterase was immobilized in a novel fenugreek hydrogel–agarose matrix with gold nanoparticles. Transparent thin films with superior mechanical strength and stability were obtained with 2% fenugreek hydrogel and 2% agarose. Immobilization of acetylcholinesterase on the membrane resulted in high enzyme retention efficiency (92%) and a significantly prolonged shelf life of the enzyme (half-life, 55 days). Transmission electron microscopy revealed that, gold nanoparticles (10–20 nm in diameter) were uniformly dispersed in the fenugreek hydrogel–agarose–acetylcholinesterase membrane. This immobilized enzyme-gold nanoparticle dip-strip system detected various carbamates, including carbofuran, oxamyl, methomyl, and carbaryl, with limits of detection of 2, 21, 113, and 236 nM (S/N = 3), respectively. Furthermore, the fabricated biosensor exhibited good testing capabilities when used to detect carbamates added to various fruit and vegetable samples.     

Sonic discontinuities in a relaxing gas

Following Elcrat [1] the phenomena associated with the sonic discontinuities in non-equilibrium gasdynamics have been studied here. The sonic wave in non-equilibrium gaseous medium propagates with the frozen speed of sound. The magnitude of discontinuities of the first derivatives of flow quantities in the unsteady flow of relaxing gas are shown to satisfy Riccatti equations along the orthogonal trajectories of surface S(t). In order to integrate them in full generality, they are transformed to an equation along the bicharacteristic curve in the characteristic manifold S(t). These equations have been solved completely. The criteria for decay or blow up of sonic discontinuities are given and the particular cases of plane and spherical waves existing in an ideal dissociative gasdynamics have been discussed. In the case of planewave for uniform propagation, it is shown that the dissociating character of the gas is to decrease the critical time. Other cases of shock formation have been studied in detail.     

A Facile Route for the Synthesis of Novel Heterocyclic Prostaglandin F2α Analogs

A general synthetic approach has been developed for heterocyclic prostaglandins (PGF_2α type) starting from the key intermediate ( 6 ). (±) 6 was obtained from (±) ‐Corey lactone. The key intermediate (±) 6 was, in turn, converted in to several new heterocyclic prostaglandins consisting of furan and thiophene moieties in ω‐side chain in two to three steps. Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reaction and Grignard reaction as the key reactions in these transformations.     

Pd‐Mediated Multicomponent Synthesis of Highly Functionalized Pyridines and Consequential C—C Coupling Using Suzuki Reaction in One Pot: Their In Vitro Evaluation as Potential Antibacterial Agents

Pd‐mediated construction of pyridine scaffold and subsequent Suzuki‐based C—C coupling reaction in one pot has been accomplished for the synthesis of 4‐biaryl substituted 2‐amino‐3‐cyanopyridines via multicomponent reaction. The present multicomponent reaction is useful in structural elaboration of pyridine framework and also helpful in design and synthesis of novel and diverse analogs of complex heterocyclic compounds other than present reported molecules. Antibacterial activities of the synthesized compounds were systematically evaluated. The correlation between functional group variation and biological activities of the compounds has been evaluated against human pathogenic gram‐positive and gram‐negative bacterial strains.     

General description of the adsorption of proteins at their iso-electric point in nanoporous materials

A simple but remarkably precise geometric pore-filling model is proposed and experimentally validated for the adsorption of proteins at their iso-electric point (pI) in nanoporous materials. Three different globular proteins-lysozyme, myoglobin, and bovine serum albumin-are used as model proteins to study protein adsorption on two types of ordered mesoporous materials-silica and carbon-which allows us to study the effects of protein and surface structure on the protein adsorption mechanism. The geometric pore-filling model confirms that proteins are closely packed inside the pore channels of mesoporous materials, leading to an exceptionally large protein loading capacity. A relationship for the amount of adsorbed protein as a function of protein size, nanopore volume, and pore diameter is derived. The pore space gradually fills up to complete packing of the available pore space at the highest protein concentration. The high precision of the geometric pore-filling model demonstrates its utility to predict the protein adsorption capacity of ordered nanoporous materials.