Supramolecular Synthons in Designing Low Molecular Mass Gelling Agents: L‐Amino Acid Methyl Ester Cinnamate Salts and their Anti‐Solvent‐Induced Instant Gelation

Easy access to a class of chiral gelators has been achieved by exploiting primary ammonium monocarboxylate ( PAM ), a supramolecular synthon. A combinatorial library comprising of 16 salts, derived from 5 l ‐amino acid methyl esters and 4 cinnamic acid derivatives, has been prepared and scanned for gelation. Remarkably, 14 out of 16 salts prepared (87.5 % of the salts) show moderate to good gelation abilities with various solvents, including commercial fuels, such as petrol. Anti‐solvent induced instant gelation at room temperature has been achieved in all the gelator salts, indicating that the gelation process is indeed an aborted crystallization phenomenon. Rheology, optical and scanning electron microscopy, small angle neutron scattering, and X‐ray powder diffraction have been used to characterize the gels. A structure‐property correlation has been attempted, based on these data, in addition to the single‐crystal structures of 5 gelator salts. Analysis of the FT‐IR and ¹H NMR spectroscopy data reveals that some of these salts can be used as supramolecular containers for the slow release of certain pest sex pheromones. The present study clearly demonstrates the merit of crystal engineering and the supramolecular synthon approach in designing new materials with multiple properties.     

Boundary element method for wave trapping by a multi-layered trapezoidal breakwater near a sloping rigid wall

This study examines the multiple layers in a rubble mound breakwater and their effect on reflection and dissipation of incoming ocean waves. The numerical model is developed using multi-domain boundary element method for oblique water wave trapping near a sloping wall by a multi-layered trapezoidal porous structure, which is utilized to model armour, filter and core layers while examining the hydrodynamics in different configurations. Both, the constant element and linear element approaches to boundary element method are discussed. The cases of bottom-standing porous structures as being submerged and fully extended are considered. The wave hydrodynamics over the structure is described by the reflection and dissipation coefficients along with the forces acting on the sloping wall, and is influenced by wave and structural parametrics of the system. The influence of armour layer in different configurations is highlighted for various structural and wave parameters.

     

Theoretical study of excited state proton transfer in pyrrole-2-carboxylic acid

Pyrrole 2-carboxylic acid (PCA) shows dual emission (310 nm and 430 nm) in water on photo-excitation, which indicates that more than one species is in the excited state. This paper reports on the quantum chemical analysis of pyrrole 2-carboxylic acid (PCA) in the light of a possible excited state proton transfer. Dipole moment, excited state energy and findings in molecular orbital calculations (HOMO, LUMO) establish that PCA is a likely candidate for transfer of a proton from the pyrrole moiety to the C=O of carboxylic moiety (possible zwitterionic form) in the excited state. Overall, the computed predicted results of intramolecular and intermolecular excited state proton transfer corroborates the experimental results.     

A note on a class of singular integro-differential equations

A simplified analysis is employed to handle a class of singular integro-differential equations for their solutions     

Exact Bianchi type V imperfect fluid solutions

It is shown that it is sufficient to solve a single first order differential equation to determine exact Bianchi type V imperfect fluid solutions of Einstein's field equations. Two exact solutions are presented in this paper. One of these two solutions corresponds to the case when the anisotropic pressure tensor is proportional to the shear tensor. This proportionality, it is shown, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the absence of heat flow in a Bianchi type V universe. It is also observed that the presence of heat flow necessarily introduces anisotropy in a Bianchi type V universe.     

Evidence of Dynamical Fluctuation of Target Residues in Relativistic Nuclear Interaction at 14.5 AGeV

An analysis of data of target fragments of ²⁸Si-AgBr (at 14.5 AGeV) reveals the existence of emission asymmetry in the azimuthal plane, which is found to depend on the number of target fragments. The comparison with the data of ³²S-AgBr (at 200 AGeV) and ¹⁶O-AgBr (at 60 AGeV) interactions indicates that emission asymmetry depends on the projectile mass and energy.     

Infrared and Raman spectroscopies of InP/II–VI core-shell nanoparticles

We use infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies to investigate the optically active phonon modes in InP nanoparticles and InP/II–VI core-shell nanoparticles fabricated by similar colloidal chemistry methods. The IR transmission spectra of several InP nanoparticle samples exhibit a common absorption feature, which we assign to the Fröhlich mode. The Raman results for the same samples show transverse and longitudinal optical phonon peaks, and scattering strength in between due to surface optical (SO) modes. Infrared spectra of the InP/ZnSe core-shell nanoparticles () exhibit three absorption features, one due to the InP core, and the others associated with the ZnSe shell layer. Raman measurements (12–292 K) also show three phonon-related peaks, whose intensities vary sharply with temperature. The frequencies of the IR and Raman lines are in approximate accord with dielectric continuum theory.     

Study of precipitation in NaCl:Pb2+ by light scattering and ultramicroscopy

The formation and dissolution behaviour of precipitates in NaCl : Pb²⁺ single crystals is studied by light scattering and ultramicroscopy. Measurements of Rayleigh ratio together with ultramicroscopic observations during isochronal annealing indicate the presence of two types of precipitates in as-grown crystals. Isochronal annealing after suitable thermal and thermomechanical treatments shows that precipitates of first type (I) which form and dissolve at lower temperatures, are due to homogeneous nucleation. Precipitates of the second category (II) which form and dissolve at higher temperatures are aligned along crystallographic directions and have their origin in stress-assisted processes. Isothermal annealing has been used to study the dissolution kinetics of the precipitated fraction, and it is found that the kinetics is of first order. The enthalpy of solution is determined from a study of the temperature dependence of the kinetic rate constant, in conjunction with available information on the migration energy of Pb²⁺ in NaCl. The enthalpy so deduced is in good agreement with the value as usually obtained from the concentration dependence of the dissolution temperature.