Direct Hydrogenation of Nitroaromatics at Room Temperature Catalyzed by Magnetically Recoverable Cu@Fe2O3 Nanoparticles

Metal embedded in metal oxide nanoparticles are active as catalyst in plethora of industrially important reactions. Herein, embedded Cu@Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles was synthesized via a one step hydrothermal strategy which selectively catalyzes the hydrogenation of diverse nitroaromatics in H₂O at room temperature. The remarkable catalytic performance is due to the successful hybridization of metallic Cu and Fe₂O₃ which in turn allows easy electroflipping between various oxidation states of Cu and Fe. Azo- and azoxy-compounds are not formed during the catalyzed process. This evidently establish that the hydrogenation of nitroaromatics proceeds via direct route with >99% selectivity to the corresponding anilines.     

Role of plant alkaloids on human health: A review of biological activities

Alkaloids are plant secondary metabolite. They are well known nitrogen-containing natural bioactive compounds. Cutting edge research is going on alkaloids to unravel novel therapeutic approaches. Literature reveals that alkaloids contribute multiple biological activities and some alkaloids transform into active metabolites too. In this review, we have focused on marketed and experimental alkaloids. We have summarized sources and biological activities of reported alkaloids in past decades.     

Anomalous structural and mechanical properties of solids confined in quasi-one-dimensional strips

We show using computer simulations and mean field theory that a system of particles in two dimensions, when laterally confined by a pair of parallel hard walls within a quasi-one-dimensional channel, possesses several anomalous structural and mechanical properties not observed in the bulk. Depending on the density rho and the distance between the walls Ly, the system shows structural characteristics analogous to a weakly modulated liquid, a strongly modulated smectic, a triangular solid, or a buckled phase. At fixed rho, a change in Ly leads to many re-entrant discontinuous transitions involving changes in the number of layers parallel to the confining walls depending crucially on the commensurability of interlayer spacing with Ly. The solid shows resistance to elongation but not to shear. When strained beyond the elastic limit, it fails undergoing plastic deformation but surprisingly, as the strain is reversed, the material completely recovers and returns to its original undeformed state. We obtain the phase diagram from mean field theory and finite size simulations and discuss the effect of fluctuations.     

Studies on electrophoretically deposited nanostructured barium titanate systems and carrier transport phenomena

We report on the development of nanostructured barium titanate (BaTiO₃, BT) films on ~200-μm-thick Ag substrates by employing a cathodic electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique, where solid-state-derived BT nanoparticles are used as the starting material. Structural, morphological and compositional analyses of the as-synthesized BT nanoparticles and films were performed by X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectroscopy studies. The synthesized nano-BT system has an average crystallite size of ~8.1 nm and a tetragonality (c/a) value ~1.003. To reveal current transport mechanism, the BT films possessing microporous structures and surrounded by homogeneously grown islands were assessed in a metal–insulator–metal (MIM) conformation. The forward current conduction was observed to be purely thermionic up to respective voltages of ~1.4 and 2.2 V as for the fresh and 3-day aged samples. On the other hand, direct tunneling (DT)-mediated Ohmic feature was witnessed at a comparatively higher voltage, beyond which Fowler–Nordheim tunneling (FN) dominates in the respective MIM junctions. The magnitude of current accompanied by FN process was observed to be stronger in reverse biasing than that of forward biasing case. The use of microporous BT films can offer new insights as regards regulated tunneling events meant for miniaturized nanoelectronic elements/components.     

Study of Forced Degradation Behaviour of Brinzolamide Using LC–ESI–Q-TOF and In Silico Toxicity Prediction

Brinzolamide (BZA) is a topical ophthalmic drug which is generally used to lower the intraocular pressure during glaucoma. It was subjected to forced degradation studies under hydrolytic (acidic, basic), oxidative, photolytic and thermal stress conditions; the drug degraded significantly in hydrolytic and oxidative conditions, leading to the formation of seven degradation products in total. It was stable on exposure to light and dry heat in the solid state. An ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method was developed on a Waters CSH phenyl hexyl column (100 × 2.1 mm, 1.7 µm), using gradient elution of 0.1 % formic acid and methanol as mobile phase. The method was extended to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Q-TOF–MS) for the structural characterisation. All degradation products were comprehensively characterised by UHPLC–ESI/MS/MS experiments. The most probable mechanisms for the formation of degradation products were also proposed. In silico toxicity of the drug and its degradation products was determined using TOPKAT toxicity prediction software.

     

Exploring a hidden fermionic dark sector

In this paper, we present a generalized unified method for finding multiwave solutions of the time-fractional (2+1)-dimensional Nizhnik–Novikov–Veselov equations. The fractional derivatives are described in the modified Riemann–Liouville sense. The fractional complex transform has been suggested to convert fractional-order differential equations with modified Riemann–Liouville derivatives into integer-order differential equations, and the reduced equations can be solved by symbolic computation. Multiauxiliary equations have been introduced in this method to obtain not only multisoliton solutions but also multiperiodic or multielliptic solutions. It is shown that the considered method is very effective and convenient for solving wide classes of nonlinear partial differential equations of fractional order.