Optimized Green Extraction of Polyphenols from Cassia javanica L. Petals for Their Application in Sunflower Oil: Anticancer and Antioxidant Properties

The total phenolic content (TPC) from Cassia javanica L. petals were extracted using ethanolic solvent extraction at concentrations ranging from 0 to 90% and an SCF-CO₂ co-solvent at various pressures. Ultrasound-assisted extraction parameters were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Antioxidant and anticancer properties of total phenols were assessed. An SCF-CO₂ co-solvent extract was nano-encapsulated and applied to sunflower oil without the addition of an antioxidant. The results indicated that the best treatment for retaining TPC and total flavonoids content (TFC) was SCF-CO₂ co-solvent followed by the ultrasound and ethanolic extraction procedures. Additionally, the best antioxidant activity by β-carotene/linoleic acid and DPPH free radical-scavenging test systems was observed by SCF-CO₂ co-solvent then ultrasound and ethanolic extraction methods. SCF-CO₂ co-solvent recorded the highest inhibition % for PC3 (76.20%) and MCF7 (98.70%) and the lowest IC₅₀ value for PC3 (145 µ/mL) and MCF7 (96 µ/mL). It was discovered that fortifying sunflower oil with SCF-CO₂ co-solvent nanoparticles had a beneficial effect on free fatty acids and peroxide levels. The SCF-CO₂ method was finally found to be superior and could be used in large-scale processing.     

Corrosion on prehistoric Cu–Sn-alloys: the influence of artificial environment and storage

The paper contributes to the identification of different corrosion products detected on the cross-section specimens sampled from Bronze Age swords and one helmet found between 60–160 years ago. The objects are kept in 1889 built oak showcases at the Natural History Museum Vienna, having suffered unknown restoration treatments. The identified corrosion products not only affect further eventual treatment in conservation science of copper base objects but also contribute to identify the often unknown find context, which is meant to facilitate archaeological interpretation of the Bronze Age weapons. The analyses of the samples were carried out using SEM-EDXS-EBSD and optical microscopy.     

A damage constitutive model for sliding friction coupled to wear

Several new constitutive models are formulated for the planar interface of a soft body sliding on a rigid soil, describing stick-slip phenomena due to friction, and wear due to abrasion. Attention is focused on damage at the interface, by neglecting any interaction with damage of body and any propagation of damage inside the body. Models are formulated in the general framework of the Thermodynamics of the irreversible processes and account for suitable defined internal variables of phenomenological type, namely gap, isotropic friction hardening and wear. The main feature of the new presented models is that the formulation of the wear process at the interface is obtained in the contest of Damage Mechanics, and it is based on the formal analogy between abrasion of a soft body and ductile damage of an elastic-plastic material. By following this approach, a scalar wear field, an effective stress and appropriate state and dissipation potentials are defined, able to describe a tangential isotropic wear process due to stick-slip and to hardening mechanism. Both cases of linear and nonlinear friction hardening are formulated; moreover, wearable and no-wearable bodies are considered. Numerical results relevant to one-dimensional problems are illustrated for monotonic, forward-backward and cyclic displacement time-histories, showing evolution for stress, gap and wear. Results furnished by different models are compared and discussed.     

Poly(amidoamine)s: Past,present, and perspectives

Poly(amidoamine)s (PAAs) are a family of synthetic polymers obtained by stepwise polyaddition of prim‐ or sec‐amines to bisacrylamides. Nearly all conceivable bisacrylamides and prim‐ or sec‐amines can be employed as monomers endowing PAAs of a structural versatility nearly unique among stepwise polyaddition polymers. PAAs are degradable in aqueous media, including physiological fluids. Many of them are remarkably biocompatible notwithstanding their cationic character. PAAs are per se highly functional polymers and, in addition, can be further functionalized giving rise to an endless variety of polymeric structures meeting the requisites for applications in such apparently disparate fields as inorganic water pollutants scavengers, sensors, drug and protein intracellular carriers, transfection promoters, peptidomimetic antiviral and antimalarial agents. In this review, the unique chemistry of PAAs is discussed and a vast library of PAA structures and PAA applications from the beginning to the present days reported. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2013, 51, 2319–2353     

A New Approach to The Synthesis of Enantiomerically Pure 4-Deoxy Sugars

In a recent paper² we have reported the design and synthesis of 3-C-lithiated 5,6-dihydro-1,4-dithiin-2-yl[(4-methoxybenzyl)oxy]methane (1) which can be utilized as an allylic alcohol anion equivalent and leads to three-carbon elongations of various electrophiles by introduction of a fully protected hydroxypropenyl moiety. The latter contains a double bond, which can be unravelled to the cis configuration by diastereoselective removal³ of the dimethylene-disulfur bridge, as well as a protected primary hydroxyl group that, depending on the deprotection conditions used (DDQ/NaBH₄ or DDQ), may either lead to the free allylic alcohol or to an α,β-unsaturated aldehyde.     

The role of the Ekenstam equation on the kinetics of cellulose hydrolytic degradation

The meaning of the Ekenstam equation (1/DP − 1/DP°) = kt is shortly discussed. Several misleading statements about its application to cellulose hydrolysis are underlined in order to improve the reliability of kinetic analyses. To this end, some further simple analyses are suggested to the experimentalists.