A supramolecular microfluidic optical chemosensor

A supramolecular microfluidic optical chemosensor (muFOC) has been fabricated. A serpentine channel has been patterned with a sol-gel film that incorporates a cyclodextrin supramolecule modified with a Tb(3+) macrocycle. Bright emission from the Tb(3+) ion is observed upon exposure of the (mu)FOC to biphenyl in aqueous solution. The signal transduction mechanism was elucidated by undertaking steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic measurements directly on the optical chemosensor patterned within the microfluidic network. The presence of biphenyl in the cyclodextrin receptor site triggers Tb(3+) emission by an absorption-energy transfer-emission process. These results demonstrate that the intricate signal transduction mechanisms of supramolecular optical chemosensors are successfully preserved in microfluidic environments.     

Ab Initio High Pressure Investigations of InI

The high pressure behaviour of InI is studied by DFT‐calculations and compared with experimental data. The existence of a 5s² electron pair in In⁺ represents an unfavourable bonding situation for high symmetry structures because of effective closed shell repulsion. Since cations with a ns² electron pair are highly polarizable and the electronic situation is more favourable in the low symmetry structure InI prefers a TlI‐type structure at ambient pressure. A pressure induced transition to the more densely packed high symmetry CsCl‐type structure takes place at about 19 GPa according to our calculations. At ambient pressure the interactions are predominantly ionic. However with increasing pressure the distances between In⁺ cations in the TlI‐type structure diminish drastically, mainly due to the changing space requirement of the lone electron pair. Apart from ionic interactions further bonding interactions between the In⁺ cations occur. At elevated pressure the electron localization function (ELF) as well as the band structure diagrams suggest metallic bonding between the In⁺ within the zigzag chain, i. e. increasing bonding interactions between the In⁺ cations due to the electron pair and its s‐p‐mixing. At ambient pressure In‐In interactions are rather weak and the space requirement of the lone electron pair mainly determines the characteristic arrangement of the ions. At elevated pressure the In‐In interactions become stronger and stabilise themselves additionally the specific structural arrangement.     

Indene and pseudoazulene discotic liquid crystals: a synthetic and structural study

Several new liquid-crystalline indene and pseudoazulene systems are reported. These molecules give rise to either columnar hexagonal mesophases and/or columnar plastic phases. The unique nature of these compounds stems from their non-classical discotic structure. Although the molecules have rigid aromatic cores, they lack terminal tails and instead the polarizable atoms (S, halogens) or polar groups (CN, CO) act as unusual soft parts. On the basis of many structurally related materials, we conclude that for this type of compound molecular stacking in the solid state is a prerequisite for the appearance of a columnar mesophase, although other intermolecular interactions within the layers are also important in establishing liquid-crystalline order. The behavior reported for these mesomorphic molecules opens up new possibilities in the search for related molecular interactions that might be useful for the construction of supramolecular architectures with particular properties.     

Supramolecular fluorophores for biological studies: phenylene vinylene-amino acid amphiphiles

We report here on a family of self-assembling fluorescent organic amphiphiles with a biomolecular L-lysine hydrophile and a photonically active phenylene vinylene hydrophobe. Unlike conventional amphiphiles, these segmented dendrimers feature a rigid, branched hydrophobe, and have packing characteristics controlled by the ratio of cross-sectional areas of the hydrophobe and hydrophile. In dilute solution, the amphiphiles form supramolecular aggregates, which are easily taken in by cells through an endocytic pathway, and have no discernible effect on cell proliferation or morphology. An analogous pyrene-based amphiphile was cytotoxic, suggesting that cell survival may be linked either to the self-assembling nature of the amphiphiles, or to the specific properties of the phenylene vinylene segment. The combination of photonic and biological components in these amphiphiles provides great potential for applications in sensing or delivery of molecules to intracellular targets.     

Efficient low-temperature oxidation of carbon-cluster anions by SO2

Carbon-cluster anions, CN-, are very reactive toward SO2 (sticking probability of 0.012 +/- 0.005 for C27- at 25 degrees C), in contrast to their inertness toward other common atmospheric gases and pollutants. In flow reactor experiments at ambient temperature and near atmospheric pressure, primary adsorption of SO2 by the carbon cluster anions, N = 4-60, yields CNSO2- or CN-1S-. The inferred elimination of neutral CO2 is also detected as meta-stable decay in collision-induced dissociation. At higher temperatures, the reaction of SO2 with nascent carbon clusters yields CN-1SO- as well as undetected CO. The size-dependent initial reactivity reflects the previously established structural transitions (i.e., from chain to cyclic to cage structures). Such carbon clusters are formed in sooting flames and may act as nuclei for the formation of primary soot particles and serve as models for the local structural features of active soot particle sites for black-carbon soot. The facile generation of reactive carbon-sulfide and -sulfinate units may therefore have implications for understanding the health and environmental effects attributed to the coincidence of soot and SO2.     

The separation of palladium and platinum by ion flotation

Differences in the ion flotation properties of palladium(II) and platinum(IV) chloro complexes in aqueous solutions are used to achieve separations of these metals. The anionic chloro complex PtCl^2-₆ is floated selectively with cationic surfactants of the type, RNR'₃Br, from solutions of PdCl^2-₄ and various concentrations of hydrochloric acid. The palladium(II) does not float from solutions of ? 3.0 M HCl and the platinum(IV) floated from these solutions can be recovered free of palladium. However, the separation is incomplete as much of the platinum(IV) is also unfloated from these solutions. Quantitative separations are obtained by conversion of the palladium(II) to the cationic ammine, Pd(NH₃)₄²⁺ with aqueous ammonia prior to flotation. The anionic chloro complex of platinum(IV) is unaffected by the presence of ammonia and is floated quantitatively with the surfactant n-hexadecyltri-n-propylammonium bromide from 0.01 M ammonia solutions.     

1,2-Epoxycarotinoide. 3. Mitteilung. Isolierun von 1,2-Epoxy-1,2-dihydrolycopin aus Tomaten

1,2-Epoxycarotenoids: Isolation of 1,2-Epoxy-1,2-dihydrolycopene from Tomatoes The optically active, 1,2-epoxy-1,2-dihydrolycopene was isolated from tomatoes. Its constitution was established by comparison with the racemic synthetic compound.     

The “Facilitated Transition” hypothesis as an explanation for the gemdialkyl effect

A new technique of searching the conformational space of transition states was used to explore the cause of the rate acceleration in the gem-dialkyl effect in intramolecular cyclization reactions. Several previous hypotheses were discarded and a new hypothesis was advanced based on this new data. This hypothesis, the “Facilitated Transition” hypothesis, states that increased steric hindrance reduces the overall activation energy by facilitating rotation through the transition state. The older “Reactive Rotamer” hypothesis was eliminated by generating all conformations of the starting materials using the and computer programs and demonstrating that no relationship is found between rate increase and a change in the concentration of “reactive rotamers”.     

A rapid radiochemical procedure for indium

A rapid radiochcmical procedure was developed for the separation of indium radionuclides from a mixed fission-product solution. An alcoholic pyridine solution is added to a uranium solution containing indium and tin carriers. The resulting tin precipitate is separated from the indium-containing solution by filtering through a cellulose membrane filter. The decontamination factor for tin is 2·10³. Other fission products are only partially removed. The chemical yield of indium is about 44%, and the time required for the separation is about 10 sec. After the tin-separated indium has decayed, the tin daughters of indium are removed from all the other fission products at a specified time and measured, so that the amount of indium present at the time of the tin precipitation is determined.     

Development and characterisation of a new interface for coupling capillary LC with collision-cell ICP–MS and its application for phosphorylation profiling of tryptic protein digests

A comparison of different nebulisers for direct hyphenation of capillary and nano liquid chromatography (Cap-LC, Nano-LC) and quadrupole-based collision cell inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (CC-ICP–MS) for phosphorylation profiling of tryptic protein digests is described. Helium was used as cell gas and specially tuned instrumental conditions were used to achieve background minimisation at the mass of phosphorus, because of kinetic energy discrimination of the interfering polyatomic ions. The proposed set-up is based on a modified capillary electrophoresis interface and a home-made 4 mL spray chamber. It enables the use of gradient conditions with a highly concentrated organic mobile phase as often used in protein phosphorylation analysis, without the need to apply membrane desolvation for removal of the organic phase or further background minimisation. No significant signal suppression or other negative effects caused by the organic mobile phase occur, because of the low flow rates used in Cap-LC and the robust plasma conditions of the CC-ICP–MS instrument. A tryptic digest of beta-casein was investigated as model compound to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed set-up for phosphorylation profiling in protein analysis using quadrupole based collision-cell ICP–MS as phosphorus-specific detector. Detection limits for phosphorylated peptides down to the sub picomole level were obtained. As a complementary technique, electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (ESI–MS–MS) with data base searching was used for further characterisation of the phosphorylated peptides detected.