Studies of the roles of Sn or Fe on γ-Al2O3-supported Pt catalysts by CO adsorption microcalorimetry and dehydrogenation reaction of C4 alkanes

CO adsorption microcalorimetry was employed in the study of γ-Al₂O₃-supported Pt, Pt-Sn and Pt-Fe catalysts. The results indicated that the initial differential heat of CO adsorption of the Pt/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was 125 kJ/mol. As CO coverage increased, the differential heat of adsorption decreased. At higher coverages, the differential heat of adsorption decreased significantly. 60% of the differential heat of CO adsorption on the Pt/γ-N₂O₃ catalyst was higher than 100 kJ/mol. No significant effect on the initial differential heat was found after adding Sn and Fe to the Pt/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst. The amount of strong CO adsorption sites decreased, while the portion of CO adsorption sites with differential heat of 60–110 kJ/mol increased after increasing the Sn or Fe content. This indicates that the surface adsorption energy was changed by adding Sn or Fe to Pt/γ-N₂O₃. The distribution of differential heat of CO adsorption on the Pt-Sn(C)/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was broad and homogeneous. Comparison of the dehydrogenation performance of C₄ alkanes with the number of CO adsorption sites with differential heat of 60–110 kJ/mol showed a good correlation. These results indicate that the surface Pt centers with differential heats of 60–110 kJ/mol for CO adsorption possess superior activity for the dehydrogenation of alkanes. Project supported by FORD and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 09412302) and the Transcentury Training Program Foundation for the Talents by The State Education Commission of China.     

Theoretical study toward understanding the catalytic mechanism of pyruvate decarboxylase

Density functional calculations are employed to explore the mechanisms of all elementary reaction steps involved in the catalytic cycle of pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC). Different models are constructed for mimicking the involvement of some key residues in a certain step. The effect of the protein framework on the potential energy profiles of active site models is approximately modeled by fixing some freedoms, based on the crystal structure of the PDC enzyme from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ScPDC). Our calculations confirm that Glu51 is the most important residue in the formation of the ylide and the release of acetaldehyde via the proton relay between Glu51, N1', and the 4'-amino group of thiamine diphosphate. The presence of Glu477 and Asp28 residues makes the decarboxylation of lactylthiamin diphosphate (LThDP) an endothermic process with a significant free energy barrier. The protonation of the alpha-carbanion to form 2-(1-hydroxyethyl)-thiamin diphosphate is found to go through a concerted double proton transfer transition state involving both Asp28 and His115 residues. The final step, acetaldehyde release, is likely to proceed through a concerted transition state involving carbon-carbon bond-breaking and the deprotonation of the alpha-hydroxyl group. The decarboxylation of LThDP and the protonation of the alpha-carbanion are two rate-limiting steps, relative to the facile occurrence of the ylide formation and acetaldehyde release. The catalytic roles of residues Glu51, Glu477, Asp28, and Gly417 in the active site of ScPDC in individual steps elucidated from the present study are in good agreement with those derived from site-directed mutagenesis.     

Surface Acidity/Basicity and Catalytic Reactivity of CeO2/7-Al2O3 Catalysts for the Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane with Carbon Dioxide to Ethylene

Dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene in CO2 was investigated over CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts at 700℃ in a conventional flow reactor operating at atmospheric pressure. XRD, BET and microcalori-metric adsorption techniques were used to characterize the structure and surface acidity/basicity of the CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts. The results show that the surface acidity decreased while the surface basicity increased after the addition of CeO2 to γ-A12O3. Accordingly, the activity of the hydrogenation reaction of CO2 increased, which might be responsible for the enhanced conversion in the dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene. The highest ethane conversion obtained was about 15% for the 25%CeO2/γ-Al2O3. The selectivity to ethylene was high for all the CeO2,γ-A12O3 and CeO2/γ-Al2O3 catalysts.     

镍铁水滑石及其衍生混合氧化物的制备和表征

采用共沉淀法合成了Ni/Fe摩尔比为1、2、3、6和10的NiFe水滑石。热重-差热结果显示NiFe水滑石的分解有二个过程，分别对应于200℃和300℃的吸热峰。经400℃焙烧后，NiFe水滑石转变为具有较高表面积的NiFeO混合氧化物(约100 m²/g)，其XRD结果仅显示NiO的衍射峰；经800℃焙烧后，NiFeO仍有15 m²/g左右的表面积。穆斯堡尔谱测定表明NiFeO混合氧化物较Fe₂O₃易还原。     

Separation of acidic and neutral compounds by strong anion-exchange capillary electrochromatography dynamically modified with sodium dodecylsulfate

Summary Acidic and neutral compounds have been separated by strong anion-exchange capillary electrochromatography (SAXCEC) dynamically modified by addition of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS). It was found that separation of neutral solutes by SAXCEC without addition of SDS is difficult because of the weak interaction of the solutes with the hydrophilic packing surface. The hydrophobicity of the packing surface increases on addition of SDS to the mobile phase, however, and the capacity of separating neutral solutes increases. Acidic solutes are retained, mainly because of the ion-exchange properties of this system. The influence of mobile phase composition, e.g. SDS concentration, ionic strength, and organic modifier fraction, on the retention of acidic and neutral solutes was investigated. Three acids and five neutral solutes were separated in only 5 min under optimized conditions, because the direction of the strong electroosmotic flow (EOF) was the same as that of electrophoretic migration of the acids under the conditions used. The repeatability of this system in terms of migration time relative standard deviation (RSD) is good—less than 0.48% for 10 consecutive runs of all the solutes tested. Column efficiencies for acids were > 125000 plates m⁻¹; those for neutral solutes varied from 25000 to 100000 plates m⁻¹.     

Isotope effect in normal-to-local transition of acetylene bending modes

The normal-to-local transition for the bending modes of acetylene is considered a prelude to its isomerization to vinylidene. Here, such a transition in fully deuterated acetylene is investigated using a full-dimensional quantum model. It is found that the local benders emerge at much lower energies and bending quantum numbers than in the hydrogen isotopomer HCCH. This is accompanied by a transition to a second kind of bending mode called counter-rotator, again at lower energies and quantum numbers than in HCCH. These transitions are also investigated using bifurcation analysis of two empirical spectroscopic fitting Hamiltonians for pure bending modes, which helps to understand the origin of the transitions semiclassically as branchings or bifurcations out of the trans- and cis-normal bend modes when the latter become dynamically unstable. The results of the quantum model and the empirical bifurcation analysis are in very good agreement.     

Communication: a chemically accurate global potential energy surface for the HO + CO → H + CO2 reaction

We report a chemically accurate global potential energy surface for the HOCO system based on high-level ab initio calculations at ~35,000 points. The potential energy surface is shown to reproduce important stationary points and minimum energy paths. Quasi-classical trajectory calculations indicated a good agreement with experimental data.     

Global potential energy surface, vibrational spectrum, and reaction dynamics of the first excited (Ã (2)A(')) state of HO(2)

The authors report extensive high-level ab initio studies of the first excited (A??(2)A(')) state of HO(2). A global potential energy surface (PES) was developed by spline-fitting 17?000 ab initio points at the internal contracted multireference configuration interaction (icMRCI) level with the AVQZ basis set. To ascertain the spectroscopic accuracy of the PES, the near-equilibrium region of the molecule was also investigated using three interpolating moving least-squares-based PESs employing dynamically weighted icMRCI methods in the complete basis set limit. Vibrational energy levels on all four surfaces agree well with each other and a new assignment of some vibrational features is proposed. In addition, the dynamics of both the forward and reverse directions of the H+O(2)(a??(1)Δ(g))?OH+O reaction (J=0) were studied using an exact wave packet method. The reactions are found to be dominated by sharp resonances.     

Highly integrated 3×3 silicon thermo-optical switch using a single combined phase shifter for optical interconnects

We report on an experimental 3×3 thermo-optical switch on silicon on insulator. By controlling a single combined phase shifter, light from any input waveguide can be directed to any output waveguide, showing a simple control method and highly integrated structure as compared to the conventional multiway optical switches. Furthermore, the proposed optical switch can be generalized to be a 1×N and N×N optical switch without an extra phase shifter. The switch is fabricated by complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. By experiment, full 3×3 switching functionality is demonstrated at a wavelength of 1.55 μm, with an average cross talk of -11.1 dB and a power consumption of 97.5 mW.     

基于LNG冷能利用的公交车空调制冷系统优化

公交车的LNG燃料蕴含大量冷量,目前尚未得到利用。文中就LNG冷能用于公交车空调系统低温送风和空调系统的过冷循环分别进行了优化分析。应用Cleland公式和VB编程计算,结果表明:LNG冷能用于12m公交车低温送风,空调制冷系统COP可提高6.8%～8.6%;将LNG冷能用于12m公交车空调系统的过冷循环,空调制冷系统COP可提高18.2%。