Adsorption enthalpy and desorption enthalpy during displacement of adsorbate to solvent in a liquid-solid system

The adsorption heat of the stoichiometric displacement process for the adsorption of a solute in a liquid-solid system was investigated. On the basis of the SDM-A and the rule of the additivity of energy, an expression which describes the dependence of the adsorption enthalpy on the nature and concentration of the solute, and on the solvent and adsorbent, was derived. The adsorption heat determined for the solute with the traditional method can be divided into two independent fractions, relating to the adsorption of the solute and to the desorption of the solvent. Experimental data on both isotherms from the literatures and precise calorimetry were used to test the adsorption heat and its fractions computed quantitatively via the equations presented in this study, and a satisfactory degree of conformity between them was obtained. Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province in China.     

Isolation and purification of honokiol and magnolol from cortex Magnoliae officinalis by high-speed counter-current chromatography

High-speed counter-current chromatography was used to isolate and purify honokiol and magnolol from cortex Magnoliae Officinalis (Magnolia officinalis Rehd. et Wils.), a plant used in the traditional Chinese medicine. A crude sample, 150 mg, was successfully separated with a two-phase solvent system composed of n-hexane-ethyl acetate-methanol-water (1:0.4:1:0.4, v/v), and the fractions were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography. The separation produced 80 and 45 mg of honokiol and magnolol with purities of 99.2 and 98.2%, respectively, in 2.5 h.     

Atomic radical—molecule reactions F + CH<Subscript>3</Subscript>C≡CH: mechanistic study

The reaction of atomic radical F with propyne has been studied theoretically using ab initio quantum chemistry methods and transition state theory. The potential energy surface was calculated at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDZ (single-point) level using the UMP2/6-311++G(d,p) optimized structures. Two reaction mechanisms including the addition–isomerization–elimination reaction mechanism and the directed hydrogen abstraction reaction mechanism are considered. For the hydrogen abstraction reactions, i.e., the most probable evolution pathway in the title reaction, the HF formation occurs via direct abstraction mechanism dominantly and the H atom picked up by the atomic radical F should come mostly from the methyl group of normal propyne. On the other hand, for the addition–isomerization–elimination mechanism, the most feasible pathway should be the atomic radical F attacking on the C≡C triple bond in propyne (CH₃C≡CH) to form a weakly-bound adduct A1 with no barrier, followed by F addition to the C≡C triple bond to form the low-lying intermediate isomer 5. Subsequently, isomer 5 directly dissociates to P3 H₂CCCHF + H via transition state TS₅/P3. The other reaction pathways on the doublet PES are less competitive due to thermodynamical or kinetic factors. Furthermore, based on the analysis of the kinetics of all channels through which the addition and abstraction reaction proceed, we expect that the competitive power of reaction channels may vary with experimental conditions for the title reaction. The present work will provide useful information for understanding the processes of atomic radical F reaction with other unsaturated hydrocarbons. This material is available from author via E-mail.     

Single Atoms of Iron on MoS2 Nanosheets for N2 Electroreduction into Ammonia

Efforts have been devoted to achieving a highly efficient artificial synthesis of ammonia (NH₃). Reported herein is a novel Fe-MoS₂ catalyst with Fe atomically dispersed onto MoS₂ nanosheets, imitating natural nitrogenase, to boost N₂ electroreduction into NH₃ at room temperature. The Fe-MoS₂ nanosheets exhibited a faradic efficiency of 18.8 % with a yield rate of 8.63 μg mg_cat.⁻¹ h⁻¹ for NH₃ at −0.3 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode. The mechanism study revealed that the electroreduction of N₂ was promoted and the competing hydrogen evolution reaction was suppressed by decorating the edge sites of S in MoS₂ with the atomically dispersed Fe, resulting in high catalytic performance for the electroreduction of N₂ into NH₃. This work provides new ideas for the design of catalysts for N₂ electroreduction and strengthens the understanding about N₂ activation over Mo-based catalysts.     

Synthesis of high purity single-walled carbon nanotubes in high yield

A simple method for the synthesis of high purity single wall carbon nanotubes has been developed by using nickel formate as a precursor for the formation of nearly mono-dispersed nickel seed-nanoparticles as catalysts in the CVD growth process.     

Dynamic Properties of Two-Dimensional Polydisperse Granular Gases

We propose a two-dimensional model of polydisperse granular mixtures with a power-law size distribution in the presence of stochastic driving. A fractal dimension D is introduced as a measurement of the inhomogeneity of the size distribution of particles. We define the global and partial granular temperatures of the multi-component mixture. By direct simulation Monte Carlo, we investigate how the inhomogeneity of the size distribution influences the dynamic properties of the mixture, focusing on the granular temperature, dissipated energy, velocity distribution, spatial clusterization, and collision time. We get the following results: a single granular temperature does not characterize a multi-component mixture and each species attains its own "granular temperature"; The velocity deviation from Gaussian distribution becomes more and more pronounced and the partial density of the assembly is more inhomogeneous with the increasing value of the fractal dimension D; The global granular temperature decreases and average dissipated energy per particle increases as the value of D augments.     

MLIMC: Machine Learning-Based Implicit-Solvent Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo (MC) methods are important computational tools for molecular structure optimizations and predictions. When solvent effects are explicitly considered, MC methods become very expensive due to the large degree of freedom associated with the water molecules and mobile ions. Alternatively implicit-solvent MC can largely reduce the computational cost by applying a mean field approximation to solvent effects and meanwhile maintains the atomic detail of the target molecule. The two most popular implicit-solvent models are the Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) model and the Generalized Born (GB) model in a way such that the GB model is an approximation to the PB model but is much faster in simulation time. In this work, we develop a machine learning-based implicit-solvent Monte Carlo (MLIMC) method by combining the advantages of both implicit solvent models in accuracy and efficiency. Specifically, the MLIMC method uses a fast and accurate PB-based machine learning (PBML) scheme to compute the electrostatic solvation free energy at each step. We validate our MLIMC method by using a benzene-water system and a protein-water system. We show that the proposed MLIMC method has great advantages in speed and accuracy for molecular structure optimization and prediction.     

Bias dependence of a deep submicron NMOSFET response to total dose irradiation

Deep submicron n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (NMOSFETs) with shallow trench isolation (STI) are exposed to ionizing dose radiation under different bias conditions.The total ionizing dose radiation induced subthreshold leakage current increase and the hump effect under four different irradiation bias conditions including the worst case (ON bias) for the transistors are discussed.The high electric fields at the corners are partly responsible for the subthreshold hump effect.Charge trapped in the isolation oxide,particularly at the Si/SiO 2 interface along the sidewalls of the trench oxide creates a leakage path,which becomes a dominant contributor to the offstate drain-to-source leakage current in the NMOSFET.Non-uniform charge distribution is introduced into a threedimensional (3D) simulation.Good agreement between experimental and simulation results is demonstrated.We find that the electric field distribution along with the STI sidewall is important for the radiation effect under different bias conditions.