Electrochemical Behaviour of HOPG and CVD‐Grown Graphene Electrodes Modified with Thick Anthraquinone Films by Diazonium Reduction

Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and graphene grown on Ni (Ni‐Gra) or Cu (Cu‐Gra) by chemical vapour deposition were modified with thick anthraquinone (AQ) films (7?60 nm) by redox grafting of the pertinent diazonium salt. Glassy carbon (GC) electrodes were used for comparison. The AQ‐modified GC electrodes showed excellent blocking properties towards the Fe(CN)₆^3?/4? redox probe, although it was noted that in the case of Ni‐Gra and Cu‐Gra, the blocking ability depended strongly on the underlying substrate. Oxygen reduction studies revealed good electrocatalytic activity of AQ‐modified HOPG, Ni‐Gra, and Cu‐Gra, compared with the bare electrodes.     

Novel Conductive Radical Cation Salts Based on Methylenediselenotetraselenafulvalene (MDSe-TSF): A Sign of Superconductivity in κ-(MDSe-TSF)2Br Below 4 K

Seven conductive radical cation salts based on MDSe-TSF (methylenediselenotetraselenafulvalene) have been synthesized by electrocrystallization in the presence of Cl⁻, Br⁻, I₃⁻, I₂Br⁻, PF₆⁻, ClO₄⁻, and Cu(NCS)₂⁻ counter anions. The crystal appearances of these salts fairly depend on the anions employed. X-ray crystallographic analyses have revealed that the PF₆ and ClO₄ salts in the shape of brown thin plates adopt the θ-type structures characterized by the herringbone arrangement of donor stacks, whereas the Cl and Br salts in the shape of black thick plates favor the κ-type structures with the orthogonal arrangement of donor dimers. Regardless of different crystal appearances or crystal packing patterns, all these salts show high conductivity (>10² S cm⁻¹) at room temperature and retain metallic properties down to 4.2 K. Of them, the Br salt shows a weak but distinct diamagnetic shielding signal below 4 K in the dc magnetization measurement under zero-field-cooled (ZFC) condition, suggesting a sign of superconductivity. The band calculations of both PF₆ and Br salts demonstrate closed Fermi surfaces indicative of two-dimensional molecular conductors.     

Analyzing the Case for Bifunctional Catalysis

Bifunctional coupling of two different catalytic site types has often been invoked to explain experimentally observed enhanced catalytic activities. We scrutinize such claims with generic scaling‐relation‐based microkinetic models that allow exploration of the theoretical limits for such a bifunctional gain for several model reactions. For sites at transition‐metal surfaces, the universality of the scaling relations between adsorption energies largely prevents any improvements through bifunctionality. Only the consideration of systems that involve the combination of different materials, such as metal particles on oxide supports, offers hope for significant bifunctional gains.     

Low energy proton beam induces tumor cell apoptosis through reactive oxygen species and activation of caspases

Proton beam is useful to target tumor tissue sparing normal cells by allowing precise dose only into tumor cells. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which proton beam induces tumor cell death are still undefined. We irradiated three different tumor cells (LLC, HepG2, and Molt-4) with low energy proton beam (35 MeV) with spread out Bragg peak (SOBP) in vitro, and investigated cell death by MTT or CCK-8 assay at 24 h after irradiation. LLC and HepG2 cells were sensitive to proton beam at over 10 Gy to induce apoptosis whereas Molt-4 showed rather low sensitivity. Relative biological effectiveness (RBE) values for the death rate relative to gamma-ray were ranged from 1.1 to 2.3 in LLC and HepG2 but from 0.3 to 0.7 in Molt-4 at 11 d after irradiation by colony formation assay. The typical apoptotic nuclear DNA morphological pattern was observed by staining with 4'-6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI). Tiny fragmented DNA was observed in HepG2 but not in Molt-4 by the treatment of proton in apoptotic DNA fragment assay. By FACS analysis after stained with FITC-Annexin-V, early as well as median apoptotic fractions were clearly increased by proton treatment. Proton beam-irradiated tumor cells induced a cleavage of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) and procaspases-3 and -9. Activity of caspases was highly enhanced after proton beam irradiation. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) were significantly increased and N-acetyl cysteine pretreatment restored the apoptotic cell death induced by proton beam. Furthermore, p38 and JNK but not ERK were activated by proton and dominant negative mutants of p38 and JNK revived proton-induced apoptosis, suggesting that p38 and JNK pathway may be activated through ROS to activate apoptosis. In conclusion, our data clearly showed that single treatment of low energy proton beam with SOBP increased ROS and induced cell death of solid tumor cells (LLC and HepG2) in an apoptotic cell death program by the induction of caspases activities.     

QCM study of microbiological activity during long-term exposure to atmosphere—aluminium colonisation by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aspergillus Niger</Emphasis>

The study demonstrated a possibility to sense the activity of microorganisms on metals in situ under atmosphere conditions using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) as a sensitive mass change detector. Other innovative aspects of the QCM application include long-term monitoring (over month), taking count of the influence of atmospheric pressure and application of Al-glued foil electrodes. The research subject was aluminium colonisation by Aspergillus niger Tiegh., a filamentous ascomycete fungus. The difference between the QCM data for abiotic and biotic samples reflected microbiological activity, which resulted in exponential mass gain during exposure. The increase in mass was due to various phenomena, i.e. development of biomass, secretion of metabolites, water uptake by the colony and microbially induced corrosion. The glued foil method demonstrated a possibility to expand the scope of the QCM studies from evaporated, sputtered or electroplated materials to those, from which thin foils may be produced. Dedicated to Professor Dr. Algirdas Vaškelis on the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

Synthesis, structure and magnetic properties of V4O9—A missing link in binary vanadium oxides

V₄O₉: A missing link of Wadsley phases has been successfully synthesized by using sulfur as a reducing agent at a low temperature and its structure has been determined by combining electron, X-ray and neutron diffractions. V₄O₉ has an orthorhombic Cmcm structure and the lattice parameters are a=10.356(2) Å, b=8.174(1) Å and c=16.559(3) Å at room temperature. The structure is composed of shared edges and corners of three types of polyhedra; a VO₆ distorted octahedron, a VO₅ pyramid and a VO₄ tetrahedron. The structure of V₄O₉ is very similar to that of vanadyl pyrophosphate (VO)₂P₂O₇ which has PO₄ tetrahedra instead of VO₄ tetrahedra. This indicates that V₄O₉ is a salt of pyro-ion [V₂O₇]^4-; (VO)₂V₂O₇. The magnetic properties of V₄O₉ have been investigated by magnetic susceptibility, high-field magnetization and inelastic neutron scattering measurements. V₄O₉ is a quantum spin system with a spin-gapped ground state. The excitation gap between the singlet ground state and the excited triplet state is approximately 73 K. The magnetic susceptibility behavior suggests that V₄O₉ is a spin-1/2 dimer system with significant interdimer interactions, as opposed to (VO)₂P₂O₇, which is an alternating spin-1/2 chain system. This difference is thought to be due to the fact that VO₄-mediated interactions are considerably weaker than PO₄-mediated interactions.     

Radical deoxygenation of 3-azatricyclo[2.2.1.0]heptan-5-ols to 2-azabicyclo[2.2.1]hept-5-enes and 1,2-dihydropyridines

Additions of alkyl or aryl Grignard reagents, or pyridin-3-yl-lithiums or lithium alkoxides, to exo-5,6-epoxy-7-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-2-tosyl-7-azabicyclo[2.2.1]hept-2-ene lead to 7-substituted-1-tosyl-3-azatricyclo[2.2.1.0^2,6]heptan-5-ols. Radical deoxygenations of 7-alkyl-1-tosyl-3-azatricyclo[2.2.1.0^2,6]heptan-5-ols give 7-alkyl-4-tosyl-2-azabicyclo[2.2.1]hept-5-enes, whereas 7-aryl-1-tosyl-3-azatricyclo[2.2.1.0^2,6]heptan-5-ols give 2-(arylmethyl)-5-tosyl-1,2-dihydropyridines.