Electroprotic reactions

Reactions involving the coupled transfer of electrons and protons are called electroprotic reactions. In this article we briefly describe some of our experiences with electroprotic reaction as a tool for executing interesting chemical transformations.     

Pattern formation of zinc nanoparticles in silica film by electrodeposition

Zinc nanoparticles were grown within gel-derived silica films by applying a direct current voltage. Pattern formation of metallic Zn was studied as a function of applied voltage and metal-silica ratio. Average particle size varied from 5.2 to 20.2 nm by changing the applied voltage and silica concentration. It was found that the transition from fractal to dendritic morphology was possible due to crystalline anisotropy. From high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images and X-ray diffraction pattern a possible model is proposed to explain this observation.     

Synthesis and thermal behavior of chiral oligomers derived from cholesterol

Synthesis and thermal properties of a series of Schiff base oligomers derived from naturally occurring cholesterol are described. In particular, four of them show smectic A and/or chiral nematic phase/s or an unknown mesophase, while the other is non-mesomorphic. Molecular packing in the SmA phase has been determined by the HRXRD experiment.     

Unraveling the Rationale Behind Organic Solvent Stability of Lipases

Organic solvent-stable lipases have pronounced impact on industrial economy as they are involved in synthesis by esterification, interesterification, and transesterification. However, very few of such natural lipases have been isolated till date. A study of the recent past provided few pillars to rely on for this work. The three-dimensional structure, inclusive of the surface and active site, of 29 organic solvent-stable lipases was analyzed by subfamily classification and protein solvent molecular docking based on fast Fourier transform correlation approach. The observations revealed that organic solvent stability of lipases is their intrinsic property and unique with respect to each lipase. In this paper, factors like surface distribution of charged, hydrophobic, and neutral residues, interaction of solvents with catalytically immutable residues, and residues interacting with essential water molecules required for lipase activity, synergistically and by mutualism contribute to render a stable lipase organic solvent. The propensity of surface charge in relation to stability in organic solvents by establishing repulsive forces to exclude solvent molecules from interacting with the surface and prohibiting the same from gaining entry to the protein core, thus stabilizing the active conformation, is a new finding. It was also interesting to note that lipases having equivalent surface-exposed positive and negative residues were stable in a wide range of organic solvents, irrespective of their LogP values.     

A grid-based algorithm in conjunction with a gaussian-based model of atoms for describing molecular geometry

A novel grid-based method is presented, which in conjunction with a smooth Gaussian-based model of atoms, is used to compute molecular volume (MV) and surface area (MSA). The MV and MSA are essential for computing nonpolar component of free energies. The objective of our grid-based approach is to identify solute atom pairs that share overlapping volumes in space. Once completed, this information is used to construct a rooted tree using depth-first method to yield the final volume and SA by using the formulations of the Gaussian model described by Grant and Pickup (J. Phys Chem, 1995, 99 , 3503). The method is designed to function uninterruptedly with the grid-based finite-difference method implemented in Delphi, a popular and open-source package used for solving the Poisson–Boltzmann equation (PBE). We demonstrate the time efficacy of the method while also validating its performance in terms of the effect of grid-resolution, positioning of the solute within the grid-map and accuracy in identification of overlapping atom pairs. We also explore and discuss different aspects of the Gaussian model with key emphasis on its physical meaningfulness. This development and its future release with the Delphi package are intended to provide a physically meaningful, fast, robust and comprehensive tool for MM/PBSA based free energy calculations. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ion acoustic solitons in a streaming relativistic plasma with negative ions

We analyze the effect of a nonzero streaming velocity of both positive and negative ions on the formation of solitary waves in a relativistic plasma. The thermodynamic situation is considered to be isothermal. For various values ofu _0/C andn _o/nowe obtain the variations of the amplitude and the width of the solitary wave.