Catalytic Upgrading of Biomass‐Derived Methyl Ketones to Liquid Transportation Fuel Precursors by an Organocatalytic Approach

A highly efficient water‐tolerant, solid‐base catalyst for the self‐condensation of biomass‐derived methyl ketones to jet‐diesel fuel precursors was developed by grafting site‐isolated secondary amines on silica‐alumina supports. It is shown that apart from the nature and density of amine groups and the spatial separation of the acidic and basic sites, the acidity of the support material plays a critical role in defining the catalytic activity. It is also found that a combination of weakly acidic silanol/aluminol with secondary amine groups can mimic proline catalysts and are more effective in catalyzing the selective dimerization reaction than the combination of amines with organic acids. In situ FTIR measurements demonstrate that acidic groups activate methyl ketones through their carbonyl groups leading to a favorable C? C bond formation step involving an enamine intermediate. DFT analysis of the reaction pathway confirms that C? C bond formation is the rate‐limiting step.     

Room‐Temperature Electronic Template Effect of the SmSi(111)‐8×2 Interface for Self‐Alignment of Organic Molecules

This work describes an innovative concept for the development of organized molecular systems based on the template effect of the pre‐structured semi‐conductive SmSi(111) interface. This substrate is selected because Sm deposition in the submonolayer range leads to a 8×2‐reconstruction, which is a well‐defined one‐dimensional semi‐metallic structure. Adsorption of aromatic molecules [1,4‐di‐(9‐ethynyltriptycenyl)‐benzene] on SmSi(111)‐ 8×2 and Si(111)‐7×7 interfaces is investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at room temperature. Density functional theory (DFT) and semi‐empirical (ASED+) calculations define the nature of the molecular adsorption sites of the target molecule on SmSi as well as their self‐alignment on this interface. Experimental data and theoretical results are in good agreement.     

Determination of shifts by means of the absolute area of the difference spectrum: cases of non-rigorous application of the theory

The method of determination of spectral shifts by use of the absolute area of the difference spectrum, previously developed in several papers, holds rigorously when the bands to be compared either have same profiles or are both symmetrical. It often happens in practice that none of these conditions is fulfilled and the concept itself of spectral shift is then questionable. However, it is possible to define in any case quantities, which, in the rigorous cases of definition of the spectral shift, are equal to each other and to the spectral shift. These quantities are the shift between the maximum intensity of the bands, the distance between vertical lines sharing the area of the bands into two equal parts, the displacement which must be given to one of the bands to reach the minimum of the absolute area of the difference spectrum. They are determined for a series of couples of model profiles, one of them being more and more dissymmetrical. Their values are compared with the approximate spectral shifts given by the application of the absolute area method. It is shown that up to relatively important dissimilarity of the profiles, the values of all these quantities are very close and may be taken as the spectral shift. Moreover, an extrapolation method giving the shift between the maximum intensities of dissimilar and dissymmetrical bands is given.     

Development of a Simple and Inexpensive Optical Absorption One‐Shot Sensor Membrane for Detection and Determination of Cyanide Ions in Water Samples

A new one‐shot optical cyanide ion sensor is proposed for determination of cyanide ions. The sensor was constructed by immobilizing crystal violet (CV) on triacetylcellulose membrane. The sensing mechanism involves reaction between cyanide ions and the immobilized CV at pH = 5.4, which results in a decrease in absorbance of the membrane at 600 nm. The sensor shows sufficient repeatability, reproducibility, operational lifetime of 3 weeks, and a response of less then 10 min under the optimum conditions and response time of 8 min. Cyanide can be determined in the concentration range of 50.0‐800 μg mL^‐1 with a detection limit of 5.0 μg mL^‐1. Most ions do not interfere with the determination of cyanide ions. The proposed sensor was successfully applied to the determination of cyanide in spiked water samples.     

Suspended droplet solvent microextraction-flame atomic absorption spectrometry (SDSME-FAAS) determination of trace amounts of copper in river and sea water samples

A simple and sensitive suspended droplet solvent microextraction (SDSME) method is proposed for the preconcentration and determination of copper by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The analytical procedure is based upon the formation of a complex between Cu(II) and 1-phenyl-1,2-propandione-2-oxime-thiosemicarbazone (PPDOT) as a complexing agent. After extraction of the complex by 1-octanol, copper concentration in the solvent drop was determined by FAAS. The effect of different parameters such as pH, PPDOT concentration, kind of buffer, kind and volume of organic solvent, volume of aqueous phase, extraction time, stirring rate of sample solution, temperature, and ionic strength were investigated. The effect of foreign ions on the determination was also studied. Under the optimized chemical and instrumental conditions, a linear calibration curve was achieved in the range of 0.0050–0.26 mg/L, with the limit of detection of 3 μg/L and the enrichment factor of 52.6. This method can be applied successfully to the determination of copper in water samples.