Covalent functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes by lipase

Lipase from Candida rugosa was covalently anchored onto acid-treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) through a self-catalytic mechanism. A variety of characterization techniques including FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, and XPS were employed to demonstrate the formation of the ester linkage between lipase and MWNTs. The MWNTs-lipase biocomposites showed significantly increased solubility in some common-used organic solvents, such as THF, DMF and chloroform. This study may offer a novel and facile route for covalent modification of carbon nanotubes, and expand the potential utilization of both lipases and MWNTs in the fields of biocatalyst and biosensor.     

Specific heat and related thermophysical properties of liquid Fe-Cu-Mo alloy

The specific heat and related thermophysical properties of liquid Fe77.5Cu13Mo9.5 monotectic alloy were investigated by an electromagnetic levitation drop calorimeter over a wide temperature range from 1482 to 1818 K. A maximum undercooling of 221 K (0.13 Tm) was achieved and the specific heat was determined as 44.71 J·mol-1·K-1. The excess specific heat, enthalpy change, entropy change and Gibbs free energy difference of this alloy were calculated on the basis of experimental results. It was found that the calculated results by traditional estimating methods can only describe the solidification process under low undercooling conditions. Only the experimental results can reflect the reality under high undercooling conditions. Meanwhile, the thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, and sound speed were derived from the present experimental results. Furthermore, the solidified microstructural morphology was examined, which consists of (Fe) and (Cu) phases. The calculated interface energy was applied to exploring the correlation between competitive nucleation and solidification microstructure within monotectic alloy.     

Supramolecular Complexes of Diglycidyl Methylphosphonate with Calix[4]resorcinolarene

Various-composition supramolecular complexes of calix[4]resorcinolarene with diglycidyl methylphosphonate were synthesized in organic solvents. The products have well-defined melting points, they are cleaved by acetylation, but remain unchanged on treatment with triethylamine.     

Thermal conductance for single wall carbon nanotubes

We report a theoretical analysis of the phonon thermal conductance, κ(T), for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCN). In a range of low temperatues up to 100 K, κ(T) of perfect SWCN is found to increase with temperature, approximately, in a parabolic fashion. This is qualitatively consistent with recent experimental measurements where the tube-tube interactions are negligibly weak. When the carbon-carbon bond length is slightly varied, κ(T) is found to be qualitatively unaltered which implies that the anharmonic effect does not change the qualitative behavior of κ(T). Received 12 June 2001     

Studies on Rare-Earth/Iron and Actinide/Iron Multilayers

Hyperfine Interactions - Multilayers of Ce/Fe and U/Fe were fabricated by sputtering and studied by X-ray diffraction and reflectivity, Mössbauer spectroscopy and polarised neutron...     

Recent Developments in Synchrotron Mössbauer Reflectometry

Hyperfine Interactions - Synchrotron Mössbauer Reflectometry (SMR), the grazing incidence nuclear resonant scattering of synchrotron radiation, can be applied to perform depth-selective phase...     

Antioxidant and Prooxidant Effects of Tocopherol

A computer simulation of the kinetics of free-radical oxidation of lipids in the presence of tocopherol was performed. The induction periods and initial rates of oxidation as functions of initial tocopherol concentrations were found to exhibit extremums. The extended kinetic scheme used in this study describes all types of observed relationships and eliminates illusory contradictions between two groups of experiments in which the antioxidant and prooxidant effects of tocopherol were found. The model can form a basis for the prediction of the effects of tocopherol and its analogs under real conditions.     

Nonnegative curvature and cobordism type

We show that in each dimension n = 4k, k≥ 2, there exist infinite sequences of closed simply connected Riemannian n-manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature and mutually distinct oriented cobordism type. W. Tuschmann’s research was supported in part by a DFG Heisenberg Fellowship.