Structure and energetics of nanometer size clusters of sulfuric acid with ammonia and dimethylamine

The structures of positively and negatively charged clusters of sulfuric acid with ammonia and/or dimethylamine ((CH(3))(2)NH or DMA) are investigated using a combination of Monte Carlo configuration sampling, semiempirical calculations, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Positively charged clusters of the formula [(NH(4)(+))(x)(HSO(4)(-))(y)](+), where x = y + 1, are studied for 1 ≤ y ≤ 10. These clusters exhibit strong cation-anion interactions, with no contribution to the hydrogen-bonding network from the bisulfate ion protons. A similar hydrogen-bonding network is found for the [(DMAH(+))(5)(HSO(4)(-))(4)](-) cluster. Negatively charged clusters derived from the reaction of DMA with [(H(2)SO(4))(3)(NH(4)(+))(HSO(4)(-))(2)](-) are also studied, up to the fully reacted cluster [(DMAH(+))(4)(HSO(4)(-))(5)](-). These clusters exhibit anion-anion and ion-molecule interactions in addition to cation-anion interactions. While the hydrogen-bonding network is extensive for both positively and negatively charged clusters, the binding energies of ions and molecules in these clusters are determined mostly by electrostatic interactions. The thermodynamics of amine substitution is explored and compared to experimental thermodynamic and kinetic data. Ammonia binds more strongly than DMA to sulfuric acid due to its greater participation in hydrogen bonding and its ability to form a more compact structure that increases electrostatic attraction between oppositely charged ions. However, the greater gas-phase basicity of DMA is sufficient to overcome the stronger binding of ammonia, making substitution of DMA for ammonia thermodynamically favorable. For small clusters of both polarities, substitutions of surface ammonium ions are facile. As the cluster size increases, an ammonium ion becomes encapsulated in the center of the cluster, making it inaccessible to substitution.     

Synthetic, structural and spectroscopic studies of (pseudo)halo(1,3-di-tert-butylimidazol-2-ylidine)gold complexes

A series of (pseudo)halo(1,3-di-tert-butylimidazol-2-ylidine)gold complexes [(But2Im)AuX](X = Cl, Br, I, CN, N3, NCO, SCN, SeCN, ONO2, OCOCH3, CH3) have been synthesized and characterised spectroscopically and structurally. 13C NMR chemical shifts for the carbene carbon vary widely with differing ancillary anion, correlating well with the sigma-donor ability of the latter and with the M-C(carbene) bond distance. These results reinforce the notion that N-heterocyclic carbene ligands are primarily sigma-donor ligands with little pi-acceptor ability.     

The Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Atmospheric Particulate Matter Samples by Accelerated Solvent Extraction (ASE)

Abstract

The Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) of PAHs (23 2- to 6-ring species) spiked onto glass fibre filters (GFFs) was studied as a function of variable extraction solvents, pressure, temperature and extraction times. Acceptable recoveries (85% ± 15%) were obtained for certain combinations of conditions and a tentative method (1500 psi, 150°C, 70:30 hexane:acetone mixture, 7 min heat-up time, 5 min static extraction time, 60% flush volume, 2 static cycles was selected for further testing. However, this method did not prove as effective as the traditional Soxhlet method of extraction when these parameters were used to extract native PAHs from ambient atmospheric particulate matter collected on a GFF by Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN) sampling protocols. The extraction recovery study for spiked GFFs was repeated using slightly different extraction conditions: 2000 psi, 100°C, 70:30 hexane:acetone, 5 min heat-up time, 5 min static extraction time, 150% flush volume, 3 static cycles. When this method was applied to the extraction of native PAHs from ambient atmospheric particulate matter collected on GFFs, the results showed equivalent or better recoveries to that of the Soxhlet method. The total time of extraction was 25 min requiring only 30 mL of solvent. This ASE method is presently used to quantitatively determine PAHs in IADN particle-phase samples.     

Synthesis and Polymerization Studies of Cyano Epoxides

Abstract

The polar epoxides β-cyanoethyl glycidyl ether, cyanomethyl glycidyl ether, β-chloro-β-cyanoethyl glycidyl ether, and 3,4-epoxy valeronitrile were prepared, characterized, and their polymerization reactions studied. Novel cyanoethyla-tion of glycidol produced the β-cyanoethyl glycidyl ether in a quantitative yield. Reported is the first practicable synthesis of epicyanohydrin, which failed to polymerize. Homo-, co-, and terpolymerizations of the polar β-epoxy nitriles with various alkylene oxides were achieved by employing a complex catalyst obtained from an aluminum alkyl, acetyl acetone, and water. The polymers produced a series of vulcanizable elastomers which displayed an ex-cellent balance of solvent resistance and low temperature flexibility, as well as good ozone resistance. The presence of a third monomer such as allyl glycidyl ether was required to facilitate rubber vulcanization. However, it was possible to vulcanize homo- and copolymers of β-chloro-βyanoethyl glycidyl ether through the pendant chlorine atom. Catalyst efficiency in all cases was poor due to the complexing of the aluminum catalyst by the nitrile function.     

PHI: A powerful new program for the analysis of anisotropic monomeric and exchange‐coupled polynuclear d‐ and f‐block complexes

A new program, PHI, with the ability to calculate the magnetic properties of large spin systems and complex orbitally degenerate systems, such as clusters of d‐block and f‐block ions, is presented. The program can intuitively fit experimental data from multiple sources, such as magnetic and spectroscopic data, simultaneously. PHI is extensively parallelized and can operate under the symmetric multiprocessing, single process multiple data, or GPU paradigms using a threaded, MPI or GPU model, respectively. For a given problem PHI is been shown to be almost 12 times faster than the well‐known program MAGPACK, limited only by available hardware. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

High–quality protein backbone reconstruction from alpha carbons using Gaussian mixture models

Coarse‐grained protein structure models offer increased efficiency in structural modeling, but these must be coupled with fast and accurate methods to revert to a full‐atom structure. Here, we present a novel algorithm to reconstruct mainchain models from C traces. This has been parameterized by fitting Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) to short backbone fragments centered on idealized peptide bonds. The method we have developed is statistically significantly more accurate than several competing methods, both in terms of RMSD values and dihedral angle differences. The method produced Ramachandran dihedral angle distributions that are closer to that observed in real proteins and better Phaser molecular replacement log‐likelihood gains. Amino acid residue sidechain reconstruction accuracy using SCWRL4 was found to be statistically significantly correlated to backbone reconstruction accuracy. Finally, the PD2 method was found to produce significantly lower energy full‐atom models using Rosetta which has implications for multiscale protein modeling using coarse‐grained models. A webserver and C++ source code is freely available for noncommercial use from: http://www.sbg.bio.ic.ac.uk/phyre2/PD2_ca2main/ . © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

FeIII Quinolylsalicylaldimine Complexes: A Rare Mixed‐Spin‐State Complex and Abrupt Spin Crossover

A new synthesis of (8‐quinolyl)‐5‐methoxysalicylaldimine (Hqsal‐5‐OMe) is reported and its crystal structure is presented. Two Fe^III complexes, [Fe(qsal‐5‐OMe)₂]Cl ? solvent (solvent=2 MeOH ? 0.5 H₂O ( 1 ) and MeCN ? H₂O ( 2 )) have been prepared and their structural, electronic and magnetic properties studied. [Fe(qsal‐5‐OMe)₂] Cl ? 2 MeOH ? 0.5 H₂O ( 1 ) exhibits rare crystallographically independent high‐spin and low‐spin Fe^III centres at 150 K, whereas [Fe(qsal‐5‐OMe)₂]Cl ? MeCN ? H₂O ( 2 ) is low spin at 100 K. In both structures there are extensive π–π and C? H???π interactions. SQUID magnetometry of 2 reveals an unusual abrupt stepped‐spin crossover with T_1/2=245 K and 275 K for steps 1 and 2, respectively, with a slight hysteresis of 5 K in the first step and a plateau of 15 K between the steps. In contrast, 1 is found to undergo an abrupt half‐spin crossover also with a hysteresis of 10 K. The two compounds are the first Fe^III complexes of a substituted qsal ligand to exhibit abrupt spin crossover. These conclusions are supported by ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy. Both complexes exhibit reversible reduction to Fe^II at ?0.18 V and irreversible oxidation of the coordinated qsal‐5‐OMe ligand at +1.10 V.     

The effect of terminal chain modifications on the mesomorphic properties of 4,4′-disubstituted diphenyldiacetylenes

The typical sidewalls produced in the fabrication of protrusion electrodes are proposed to create a low voltage (4.5 V_rms) and high transmittance (93%) blue-phase liquid crystal display (BP-LCD). The tilted electrodes produce a strong horizontal electrical field that reduces the operating voltage considerably. The common problem of the ‘dead zones’ is solved by reflecting the light onto the electrodes. In order to estimate the phase retardation of the reflected light, a ray tracing simulation program for anisotropic mediums has been developed. The proposed device is more competitive than vertical field switching based BP-LCD and also, has the advantages of protruded in-plane-switching structures. These facts make this technology a potential candidate for the next generation of BP-LCDs.     

Epitope affinity chromatography and biophysical studies of monoclonal antibodies and recombinant antibody fragments

Peptide epitope affinity chromatography is a powerful technique for the purification of antibodies. This study aims to demonstrate the versatility of the technique and to show how biophysical techniques such as circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence quenching (FQ) can aid the rational design of affinity ligands and characterization of antibody-based reagents. The performance of a number of peptide ligands for the purification of a range of different antibodies and recombinant fragments is investigated by automated fast-protein liquid chromatography. Purified products are analyzed for purity by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. They are then radiolabelled and the immunoreactivity is determined. Ligands are analyzed for secondary structural characteristics by CD and for binding affinity by FQ. Finally, a study is performed to investigate the thermal stability of a recombinant antibody fragment by CD analysis. It is found that simple ligand modifications such as the introduction of a C-terminal cysteine residue can improve purification performance. The FQ studies show that the modified peptide has a higher affinity for antibody. The CD analysis shows that it has a tendency to dimerize because of the formation of disulfide bonds. The versatility of epitope affinity is demonstrated through the purification of a recombinant diabody (dbFv) and by the use of a separate peptide matrix for the purification of an unrelated antibody. All studies result in antibody preparations of high purity and immunoreactivity. The CD analysis of the dbFv shows that it is denatured at 37 degrees C and is therefore unsuitable as a targeting reagent for use in humans in its present form. It is concluded that epitope affinity chromatography coupled with biophysical analyses plays an important role in the production and characterization of antibody-based reagents for targeted diagnosis and therapy of human diseases.     

Synthesis and polymerisation of lipophilic peptide nucleic acids derived from stearic acid and pentacosa-10,12-diynoic acid

The adenine, cytosine and thymine peptide nucleic acid (PNA) monomers and PNA T₁₀ oligomers bearing either a diacetylenic or stearoyl moiety at the N- or C-terminus have been successfully prepared. The resulting thymine monomeric and T₁₀-mer derivatives have been subsequently incorporated into polydiacetylene-containing liposomes.