Direct potentiometric immunoelectrodes

Summary TK pencil fine mines type Faber Castell Super polymer from Staedtler are used as graphite based material for an atrazine-sensitive immunoelectrode. Eighteen procedures are tested to immobilize antibodies against atrazine but only one turned out to be useful for the preparation of a graphite based immunoelectrode. It incorporates binding of glutardialdehyde to active sites of the graphite surface and subsequent cross-linking of the antibodies with glutardialdehyde. The method has been carefully optimized with respect to selectivity and the cross-sensitivity is determined for such an electrode based on atrazine-rabbit and atrazine-sheep antibodies as well. Due to the structural difference of the used immunogens, the sign of the potential response and the cross-sensitivities are different. The application of such an electrode to a natural water sample is demonstrated and shows that the useful concentration range in a final solution is between 20 and 250 ng/l. Of course, interference from ions must be excluded in future analytical applications.Dedicated to Professor Dr. Wilhelm Fresenius on the occasion of his 80th birthdayPart II: Fresenius J Anal Chem     

Information content analysis for reaction of oreinted molecules

Experimental data on the orientation dependence of the reactivity in NO + O₃ and Rb + CH₃I collisions is analyzed. Error limits of the measurements are used to conclude that one low-order, or “Legendre moment” accounts for much of the observed dependence on the orientation. The same procedure applies also to data on the polarization of the products.     

Diffusion and reaction in random media and models of evolution processes

A diffusion equation including source terms, representing randomly distributed sources and sinks is considered. For quasilinear growth rates the eigenvalue problem is equivalent to that of the quantum mechanical motion of electrons in random fields. Correspondingly there exist localized and extended density distributions dependent on the statistics of the random field and on the dimension of the space. Besides applications in physics (nonequilibrium processes in pumped disordered solid materials) a new evolution model is discussed which considers evolution as hill climbing in a random landscape.We dedicate this work to the memory of Ilya M. Lifshitz.     

Direct potentiometric immunoelectrodes

A method is described to determine Atrazine and its cross-reacting relatives in water, using a previously described graphite based one-way immunoelectrode and any standard millivoltmeter with low input bias current. The new procedure separates the potential measuring step from the incubation step. In this way, the conditions for highly stable potential measurements and for a most effective formation of the hapten (Atrazine) antibody complex can be optimized separately and all imponderable influence from ions in the analyte water is excluded. The limit of detection of such an electrode is some nanogram per liter.Part III: see [4]