Thermally stable polymer composites with improved transparency by using colloidal mesoporous silica nanoparticles as inorganic fillers

The colloidal mesoporous silica nanoparticles with small particle sizes (namely, CMS) are used as inorganic fillers of polymers (i.e. epoxy and silicone). From simple calculation, almost all polymers are estimated to be confined in the mesopores. To clarify the superiority of CMS over nonporous silica particles and mesoporous silica particles with much larger size (TMPS-4) as inorganic fillers, a systematic study on mechanical strength and transparency of polymer-silica nanocomposites was conducted. Compared with nonporous silica particles, similar to TMPS-4, CMS shows a greater effect on lowering the CTE. In addition, obtained polymer-CMS nanocomposites show improved transparency than polymer-TMPS-4 nanocomposites.     

Bacterial Reduction of Cr(VI) at Technical Scale—The Malaysian Experience

The bacterial reduction of Cr(VI) from industrial wastewater was evaluated using a 2.0-m³ bioreactor. Liquid pineapple waste was used as a nutrient for the biofilm community formed inside the bioreactor. The use of rubber wood sawdust as packing material was able to immobilize more than 10⁶?CFU?mL^?1 of Acinetobacter haemolyticus cells after 3?days of contact time. Complete reduction of 15?C240?mg?L^?1 of Cr(VI) was achieved even after 3?months of bioreactor operation. Cr(VI) was not detected in the final effluent fraction indicating complete removal of Cr from solution from the flocculation/coagulation step and the unlikely re-oxidation of Cr(III) into Cr(VI). Impatiens balsamina L. and Gomphrena globosa L. showed better growth in the presence of soil?Csludge mixture compared to Coleus scutellarioides (L.) Benth. Significant amounts of Cr accumulated at different sections of the plants indicate its potential application in Cr phytoremediation effort. The bacterial-based system was also determined not to be detrimental to human health based on the low levels of Cr detected in the hair and nail samples of the plant operators. Thus, it can be said that bacterial-based Cr(VI) treatment system is a feasible alternative to the conventional system especially for lower Cr(VI) concentrations, where sludge generated can be used as growth supplement for ornamental plant as well as not detrimental to the health of the workers.     

Crystal Structure,Thermal Analysis and IR Spectroscopic Investigation of Bis Benzyl Ammonium Monohydrogentetraoxoarsenate(V) Monohydrate

Abstract  

The salt bis benzyl ammonium monohydrogentetraoxoarsenate(V) monohydrate [C₆H₅CH₂NH₃ ⁺]₂HAsO₄ ²⁻·H₂O, M = 373.92, Triclinic, P−1. a = 6.514(1), b = 8.910(2), c = 15.061(3) ?, α = 99.26(2), β = 93.93(1), γ = 97.64(1)°, V = 851.5(3), Z = 2, D _x  = 1.460, λ (MoKα) = 0.71073 ?, μ = 0.99 mm⁻¹, F(000) = 126, T = 20(2)  °C, final R = 0.673 for 5488 unique reflections. Planes of HAsO₄ ²⁻ alternate with planes of C₆H₅CH₂NH₃ ⁺ groups. The structure consists of infinite parallel two-dimensional planes built of mutually connected ions and water molecules by strong O–H···O and N–H···O hydrogen bonding. There are no contacts other than van der Waals interactions between the layers. Differential scanning calorimetry study on bis benzyl ammonium monohydrogentetraoxoarsenate(V) monohydrate was carried out. The infrared of polycrystalline samples of this compound have been recorded at room temperature.     

Enhanced Directed Random Walk for the Identification of Breast Cancer Prognostic Markers from Multiclass Expression Data

Artificial intelligence in healthcare can potentially identify the probability of contracting a particular disease more accurately. There are five common molecular subtypes of breast cancer: luminal A, luminal B, basal, ERBB2, and normal-like. Previous investigations showed that pathway-based microarray analysis could help in the identification of prognostic markers from gene expressions. For example, directed random walk (DRW) can infer a greater reproducibility power of the pathway activity between two classes of samples with a higher classification accuracy. However, most of the existing methods (including DRW) ignored the characteristics of different cancer subtypes and considered all of the pathways to contribute equally to the analysis. Therefore, an enhanced DRW (eDRW+) is proposed to identify breast cancer prognostic markers from multiclass expression data. An improved weight strategy using one-way ANOVA (F-test) and pathway selection based on the greatest reproducibility power is proposed in eDRW+. The experimental results show that the eDRW+ exceeds other methods in terms of AUC. Besides this, the eDRW+ identifies 294 gene markers and 45 pathway markers from the breast cancer datasets with better AUC. Therefore, the prognostic markers (pathway markers and gene markers) can identify drug targets and look for cancer subtypes with clinically distinct outcomes.     

Hydro­gen‐bonded adducts of ferrocene‐1,1′‐diyl­bis­(di­phenyl­methanol): monomeric and dimeric 1:1 adducts with 1,2‐bis(4‐pyridyl)­ethane and 1,2‐­diamino­ethane

In ferrocene‐1,1′‐diyl­bis­(di­phenyl­methanol)–4,4′‐ethyl­enedi­pyridine (1/1), [Fe(C₁₈H₁₅O)₂]·C₁₂H₁₂N₂, there is an intra­molecular O—H?O hydrogen bond in the ferrocenediol component and a single O—H?N hydrogen bond linking the two components into a finite monomeric adduct. Ferrocene‐1,1′‐diyl­bis­(di­phenyl­methanol)–ethyl­enedi­amine (1/1), [Fe(C₁₈H₁₅O)₂]·C₂H₈N₂, crystallizes with Z′ = 2 in space group P, and there are two independent four‐component aggregates in the structure, both of which are centrosymmetric. In the first type of aggregate, the molecular components are linked by O—H?N and N—H?O hydrogen bonds, in which both di­amine N atoms participate; in the second type of aggregate, the di­amine component is disordered over two sets of sites, but only one N atom is involved in the hydrogen bonding.     

Dynamics of an electrified confined planar jet in a zero gravity environment

Meccanica - The present work deals with temporal electro-aerodynamics instability properties of an inviscid confined planar jet in a zero gravity environment and the existence of electric field....     

Adsorptive characteristics of some metal ions on chitosan/zirconium phosphate/silica decorated graphene oxide

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Graphene oxide/chitosan/zirconiumphosphate/silicate (GO/CS/ZrP/Si) as a novel nano-composite has highly adsorption of 134Cs, 60Co, 152, 154Eu and...     

Adsorption of radioisotopes from their organic solutions on filter papers the Sb(III)-nonpolar solvents-system

The extraction of Sb(III) chloride by nonpolar solvents from 0.15M HCl was studied as a function of sulphuric acid concentrations in the aqueous phase. The distribution of Sb(III) chloride between the nonpolar solvents benzene, toluene, xylene, nitrobenzene, cyclohexane, chloroform and carbon tetrachloride and filter paper is reported. In case of benzene the Sb(III) activity (given in counts·s^–1·ml^–1) decreases from 1500 to 200 after 24 hours. The corresponding values are about 1200 and 540 for toluene, 1330 and 50 for xylene, 1050 and 700 for nitrobezene, 1080 and 22 for cyclohexane, 330 and 30 for chloroform and 130 and 40 for carbon tetrachloride. More than 95% of the adsorbed Sb(III) is desorbed by 1M HNO₃, 1M HCl or 0.5M H₂SO₄ by contacting the loaded filter paper with any of these acids for 27 hours.     

N,N′‐Dithiobisphthalimide–1,4‐dioxan (1/0.6): a C2/c solvate with disordered solvent molecules localized in channels

N,N′‐Di­thio­bisphthal­imide crystallizes from 1,4‐dioxan solution as a solvate, 3C₁₆H₈N₂O₄S₂·1.8C₄H₈O₂, having space group C2/c. Four of the 12 C₁₆H₈N₂O₄S₂ mol­ecules in the unit cell lie on twofold rotation axes, while the other eight lie in general positions. These mol­ecules are linked by aromatic π–π‐stacking interactions and by C—H?O hydrogen bonds to form a framework enclosing continuous channels running parallel to the [101] direction, which account for ca 20% of the unit‐cell volume. The dioxan mol­ecules lie in these channels disordered across two sets of sites, with one set across an inversion centre and the other across a twofold rotation axis.