Selective Catalytic Isomerization of β-Pinene Oxide to Perillyl Alcohol Enhanced by Protic Tetraimidazolium Nitrate

A series of tetraimidazolium salts with different anions was prepared and applied in the isomerization of β-pinene oxide. After examining the activity of different catalysts, a remarkable enhancement of the selectivity of perillyl alcohol (47 %) was obtained over [PEimi][HNO₃]₄ under mild reaction conditions and using DMSO as the solvent. Furthermore, noncovalent interactions between solvent molecules and the catalyst were found by FT-IR spectroscopy and confirmed by computational chemistry. The homogeneous catalyst showed excellent stability and was reused up to six times without significant loss.     

Polyvinylpyrrolidone and graphene-modified hematite nanoparticles for efficient electrocatalytic oxidation of p-nitrophenol

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and graphene (G)-modified iron oxides (Fe2O3-PVP-G) are prepared by a simple hydrothermal reaction. Their morphology and...     

On the redox reactions between allyl radicals and NOx

NO_x mitigation is a central focus of combustion technologies with increasingly stringent emission regulations. NO_x can also enhance the autoignition of hydrocarbon fuels and can promote soot oxidation. The reaction between allyl radical (C₃H₅) and NO_x plays an important role in the oxidation kinetics of propene. In this work, we measured the absolute rate coefficients for the redox reaction between C₃H₅ and NO_x over the temperature range of 1000–1252 K and pressure range of 1.5–5.0 bar using a shock tube and UV laser absorption technique. We produced C₃H₅ by shock heating of C₃H₅I behind reflected shock waves. Using a Ti:Sapphire laser system with frequency quadrupling, we monitored the kinetics of C₃H₅ at 220 nm. Unlike low-temperature chemistry, the two target reactions, C₃H₅ + NO → products (R1) and C₃H₅ + NO₂ → products (R2), exhibited a strong positive temperature dependence for this radical-radical type reaction. However, these reactions did not show any pressure dependence over the pressure range of 1.5–5.0 bar, indicating that the measured rate coefficients are close to the high-pressure limit. The measured values of the rate coefficients resulted in the following Arrhenius expressions (in unit of cm³/molecule/s):$k_1\left({\mathrm{C}}_3{\mathrm{H}}_5+\text{NO}\right)=1.49\times {10}^{?10}\exp \left(?6083.6\frac{\mathrm{K}}{T}\right)\left(1017?1252K\right)$$k_2\left({\mathrm{C}}_3{\mathrm{H}}_5+\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{O}}_2\right)=1.71\times {10}^{?10}\exp \left(?3675.7\frac{\mathrm{K}}{T}\right)\left(1062?1250K\right)$To our knowledge, these are the first high-temperature measurements of allyl + NO_x reactions. The reported data will be highly useful in understanding the interaction of NO_x with resonantly stabilized radicals as well as the mutual sensitization effect of NO_x on hydrocarbon fuels.     

Electrochemiluminescence Enhanced by the Synergetic Effect of Porphyrin and Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for Uric Acid Detection

The design and exploration of efficient, stable and environmentally compatible organic emitters for an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensor is a promising topic. Herein, a novel environmentally-friendly luminophore, ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs, were fabricated via self-assembly of porphyrin molecules (ZnBCBTP) onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The resulting luminophore ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs displayed not only the highly ECL property and but also the good accelerated electron mobility. Then, a label-free ECL biosensor based ZnBCBTP@MWCNTs was constructed for the ultrasensitive detection of uric acid. Excitingly, this proposed ECL biosensor performed a good linear relationship in the range of 0–300 μM with a low detection limit of 1.4 μM, thus offering another reliable and feasible sensing platform for clinical bioanalysis with good selectivity, stability, and repeatability.     

12β-Acetyloxyperforatin,a New Limonoid from Harrisonia Perforata

A new A, D-seco limonoid, named 12-acetyloxyperforatin (1), along with three known ones, were isolated from the leaves of Harrisonia perforata. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analysis, including extensive NMR techniques and computational modelling. These compounds showed no inhibitory activity against the 11β-HSD1 enzyme.     

A Structural Entropy Measurement Principle of Propositional Formulas in Conjunctive Normal Form

The satisfiability (SAT) problem is a core problem in computer science. Existing studies have shown that most industrial SAT instances can be effectively solved by modern SAT solvers while random SAT instances cannot. It is believed that the structural characteristics of different SAT formula classes are the reasons behind this difference. In this paper, we study the structural properties of propositional formulas in conjunctive normal form (CNF) by the principle of structural entropy of formulas. First, we used structural entropy to measure the complex structure of a formula and found that the difficulty solving the formula is related to the structural entropy of the formula. The smaller the compressing information of a formula, the more difficult it is to solve the formula. Secondly, we proposed a λ-approximation strategy to approximate the structural entropy of large formulas. The experimental results showed that the proposed strategy can effectively approximate the structural entropy of the original formula and that the approximation ratio is more than 92%. Finally, we analyzed the structural properties of a formula in the solution process and found that a local search solver tends to select variables in different communities to perform the next round of searches during a search and that the structural entropy of a variable affects the probability of the variable being flipped. By using these conclusions, we also proposed an initial candidate solution generation strategy for a local search for SAT, and the experimental results showed that this strategy effectively improves the performance of the solvers CCAsat and Sparrow2011 when incorporated into these two solvers.     

Photodegradation mechanisms of acyclovir in water and the toxicity of photoproducts

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - In the present work the final products of coumarin radiation chemical transformation are investigated by chromatography. During radiolysis of...