A modified sequential extraction method for arsenic fractionation in sediments

A modified sequential extraction method was developed to characterize arsenic (As) associated with different solid constituents in surficial deposits (sediments), which are unconsolidated glacial deposits overlying bedrock. Current sequential extraction methods produce a significant amount of unresolved As in the residual fraction, but our proposed scheme can fractionate >90% of the As present in sediments. Sediment samples containing different As concentrations (3–35 μg g⁻¹) were used to assess the developed method. The pooled amount of As recovered from all the fractions using the developed method was similar (83–122%) to the total As extracted by acid digestion. The concentrations of As in different fractions using the developed scheme were comparable (89–106%) to the As fractions obtained by other existing methods. The developed method was also evaluated for the sequential extraction of other metals such as copper (Cu), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr) and strontium (Sr) in the sediment samples. The pooled concentrations of these four individual metals from all the fractions were similar (96–104%) to their total concentrations extracted by acid digestion. During method development, we used extractants that did not contain chloride to eliminate formation of polyatomic ions of argon chloride (⁴⁰Ar³⁵Cl) that interfered with ⁷⁵As when analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The results suggest that the developed method can reliably be employed for complete As and other metals’ fractionation in sediments using ICP-MS.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Biodegradable Di‐ and Tri‐Block Copolymers Based on Ethylene Carbonate Polymer as Hydrophobic Segment

Synthesis of novel amphiphilic biodegradable block copolymers based on ethylene carbonate is reported in this study. Polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether (MeO‐PEO) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) of varying molar masses are used as macro‐initiator for ring‐opening polymerization of ethylene carbonate in the presence of sodium stannate trihydrate as a heterogeneous transesterification catalyst. Earlier elution of block copolymer from macro‐initiator in size exclusion chromatography (SEC) indicated the successful synthesis of the block copolymers. Ratios of both types of blocks are varied systematically. Liquid chromatography at critical conditions is used for the analysis of the non‐critical individual blocks, and if there are any critical segments that are not attached to the non‐critical block. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the synthesis of ethylene carbonate‐based amphiphilic block copolymers. Chromatographic critical conditions of the ethylene carbonate polymer are also reported for the first time. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017 , 55, 1887–1893     

Novel phenothiazine-based chalcone derivatives with various N-substituted rhodanines induce growth inhibition followed by apoptosis in leukemia cells

Research on Chemical Intermediates - Eight new series of novel phenothiazine-based chalcone derivatives with various N-substituted rhodanines (10a–g to 17a–g) were synthesized by...     

Transferred multipolar atom model for 10β,17β‐dihydroxy‐17α‐methylestr‐4‐en‐3‐one dihydrate obtained from the biotransformation of methyloestrenolone

Biotransformation is the structural modification of compounds using enzymes as the catalysts and it plays a key role in the synthesis of pharmaceutically important compounds. 10β,17β‐Dihydroxy‐17α‐methylestr‐4‐en‐3‐one dihydrate, C₁₉H₂₈O₃·2H₂O, was obtained from the fungal biotransformation of methyloestrenolone. The structure was refined using the classical independent atom model (IAM) and a transferred multipolar atom model using the ELMAM2 database. The results from the two refinements have been compared. The ELMAM2 refinement has been found to be superior in terms of the refinement statistics. It has been shown that certain electron‐density‐derived properties can be calculated on the basis of the transferred parameters for crystals which diffract to ordinary resolution.     

Enantiopure Ferrocene‐Based Planar‐Chiral Iridacycles: Stereospecific Control of Iridium‐Centred Chirality

Reaction of [IrCp*Cl₂]₂ with ferrocenylimines (Fc=NAr, Ar=Ph, p‐MeOC₆H₄) results in ferrocene C?H activation and the diastereoselective synthesis of half‐sandwich iridacycles of relative configuration S_p*,R_Ir*. Extension to (S)‐2‐ferrocenyl‐4‐(1‐methylethyl)oxazoline gave highly diastereoselective control over the new elements of planar chirality and metal‐based pseudo‐tetrahedral chirality, to give both neutral and cationic half‐sandwich iridacycles of absolute configuration S_c,S_p,R_Ir. Substitution reactions proceed with retention of configuration, with the planar chirality controlling the metal‐centred chirality through an iron–iridium interaction in the coordinatively unsaturated cationic intermediate.     

A Novel One Pot Synthesis of o‐Nitrophenylacetic Acid and Unexpected p‐Nitrobenzoic Acid by HNO3‐Mediated CH2 Extrusion Reaction of Phenylacetic Acid

The HNO₃‐mediated CH₂ extrusion reactions of phenylacetic acid lead to one pot synthesis of unexpected commercially important product 4‐nitrobenzoic acid through the formation of 4‐nitrophenylacetic acid and 2‐nitrophenylacetic acid.     

Effect of transmission fiber and amplifier noise on optical chaos synchronization

Optical chaos propagation has few constraints peculiar to itself which do not become as significant in conventional nonchaotic optical communication. We have investigated the effects of transmission fiber nonlinearities, dispersion and noise of erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) on chaotic signal synchronization in lumped and distributed configuration. It is found that the effects of fiber dispersion can be easily compensated; however, the effects of fiber nonlinearity on chaos cannot be overdone and must be avoided. Three distinct configurations with different combinations of standard telecommunication fiber, dispersion compensation fiber and lumped and distributed EDF for amplification are analysed. The results are compared in terms of sync diagrams and noise figure. The chaos after propagation through distributed amplification performs better as compared to lumped amplification. Also, a new quantitative measure for the calculation of deviation in sync diagram of chaos is introduced.