Thermal hazard evaluation of carbon nanotubes with sulfuric acid by DSC

Many concerns over unsafe or unknown properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) have been raised. The thermal characteristics regarding stability would represent potential hazards during the production or utilization stage and could be determined by calorimetric tests for various thermokinetic parameters. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed to evaluate the thermokinetic parameters for MWNTs at various compositions. Thermoanalytical curves showed that the average heat of decomposition (ΔH _d) of the MWNTs samples in a manufacturing process was about 31,723 J g⁻¹, by identifying them as an inherently hazardous material. In this study, significant thermal analysis appeared in the presence of sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄). From the DSC experiments, the purification process of MWNTs could induce an unexpected reaction in the condition of batch addition with reactants of H₂SO₄. The results can be applied for designing emergency relief system and emergency rescue strategies during a perturbed situation or accident.     

Solution derived Al-doped zinc oxide films: doping effect,microstructure and electrical property

This study investigates the influences of the microstructures and doping effect on electrical and optical properties of ZnO:Al films deposited by sol–gel method. Experimental results showed that aluminum concentration affected the crystallite size obviously and enhanced the relative intensity i ₍₀₀₂₎ faintly. Based on photoluminescence results, too much doping atoms generally can cause film crystallinity to deteriorate. Hall measurements indicated the carrier concentration rose only to a certain level after several coating processes. According to ellipsometric data, higher carrier mobility was mainly caused by the escalating density resulted by the increasing film thickness. However, the formation mechanism of charge carrier by doping technique in the sol–gel process is different from that of sputtering technique. The best sample having a sheet resistance of 182 Ω/sq and a transmittance of over 80% in visible region was obtained in aluminum concentration of 1.0 at.%.     

Protein identification from two-dimensional gel electrophoresis by connecting ZipTip with a home-assembled nanoflow system

Mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful technique for protein identification in proteomic research. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) combined with MS is a significant method for protein separation and identification. For protein identification, peptide sequencing is usually carried out by an effective but expensive nano-flow liquid chromatographic system combined to tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). However, protein identification based on such method is time-consuming, and contamination may occur as a result of column overloading. In this study, we establish an alternative nanoscale system for protein identification using MS/MS. The system consists of several devices that can be purchased from commercial sources and can be connected to an electrospray ionization quadrupole-time of flight (ESI-Q-TOF) MS in order to analyze proteins from 2D gels. This inexpensive strategy provides an attractive alternative method for rapid identification of proteins using a nanospray source. In addition, the device is disposable so that contamination is avoided. It is shown that peptide sequencing based on this device using ESI-Q-TOF MS is accomplished within 10 min.     

Textile‐based Electrochemical Sensing: Effect of Fabric Substrate and Detection of Nitroaromatic Explosives

This study examines the influence of textile substrates upon the behavior of wearable screen‐printed electrodes and demonstrates the attractive sensing properties of these sensors towards the detection of nitroaromatic explosives. Compared to electrodes printed on common cotton or polyester substrates, GORE‐TEX‐based electrochemical sensors display reproducible background cyclic voltammograms, reflecting the excellent water‐repellant properties of the GORE‐TEX fabric. The wetting properties of different printed textile electrodes are elucidated using contact angle measurements. The influence of laundry washing and mechanical stress is explored. The GORE‐TEX‐based printed electrodes exhibit favorable detection of 2,4‐dinitrotoluene (DNT) and 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives, including rapid detection of DNT vapor.     

Dendritic Macromolecules as Inhibitors to Protein-Protein Binding

Summary: Our initial studies into protein binding using a series of dendrimers as size selective inhibitors have been described. Two different proteins, cytochromo-c and chymotrypsin have been selected for these binding experiments.     

Determination of cyromazine and melamine in chicken eggs using quick,easy, cheap,effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) extraction coupled with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

A rapid and sensitive method has been developed for the simultaneous detection of cyromazine and melamine in chicken eggs using the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe (QuEChERS) method coupled with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). The optimal extraction solvent for the liquid–liquid extraction was 5 mL of acetonitrile with a 0.1 M hydrochloric acid aqueous solution (99.5:0.5, v/v). The extract was cleaned with 0.5 g of anhydrous magnesium sulfate and 10 mg of graphitized carbon black. The analysis of cyromazine and melamine was accomplished by combining the use of an anion exchange LC column with tandem mass spectrometry in the positive electrospray ionization mode with selected reaction monitoring mode (SRM). The detection limits were 1.6 ng g⁻¹ for cyromazine and 8 ng g⁻¹ for melamine, and the quantitation limits were 5.5 ng g⁻¹ for cyromazine and 25 ng g⁻¹ for melamine. The recoveries of cyromazine and melamine in the spiked egg samples were 83.2% and 104.6%, respectively, with an relative standard deviation (RSD) of less than 18.1%. The intra-day and inter-day precisions, represented by the RSD, ranged from 1.5% to 8.8% and 6.8% to 14.3%, respectively. The proposed method was tested by analyzing chicken eggs from the markets and from the veterinary medicine laboratory. The concentrations of cyromazine and melamine detected in these samples were in the range of 20–94 ng g⁻¹. The results demonstrated that the QuEChERS method combined with LC–MS/MS is a simple, rapid and inexpensive method for the analysis of cyromazine and melamine in eggs.     

Wavelet-Based Method for Time-Domain Noise Analysis and Reduction in a Frequency-Scan Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer

We adopt an orthogonal wavelet packet decomposition (OWPD) filtering approach to cancel harmonic interference noises arising from an AC power source in time domain and remove the resulting rf voltage interference noise from the mass spectra acquired by using a charge detection frequency-scan quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer. With the use of a phase lock resampling technique, the transform coefficients of the rf interference in signals become a constant, exhibiting a shift of the baseline in different rf phases. The rf interference is therefore removable by shifting the baselines back to zero in OWPD coefficients. The approach successfully reduces the time-domain background noise from 1367 electrons (rms) to 408 electrons (rms) (an improvement of 70?%) and removes the high frequency noise components in the charge detection ion trap mass spectrometry. Unlike other smoothing or averaging methods commonly used in the mass-to-charge (m/Ze) domain, our approach does not cause any distortion of original signals.     

Reactivity of 3d transition metal cations in diethylene glycol solutions. Synthesis of transition metal ferrites with the structure of discrete nanoparticles complexed with long-chain carboxylate anions

Study of the reactivity of 3d transition metal cations in diethylene glycol solutions revealed several key features that made it possible to develop a new method for synthesis of the nanocrystalline transition metal ferrites. The 3-7 nm particles of [MFe2O4]n[O2CR]m, where M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Zn, ligated on their surface with long-chain carboxylate anions, have been obtained in an isolated yield of 75-90%. The key features are the following. Complexation of the first-row transition metal cations with diethylene glycol at a presence of alkaline hydroxide is sufficient to enable control over the rate of their hydrolysis. The reaction of hydrolysis leads to the formation of metal oxide nanocrystals in colloidal solution. The nanoparticles growth is terminated by an added long-chain carboxylic acid, which binds to their surface and acts as a capping ligand. The isolated nanocrystalline powders are stable against agglomeration and highly soluble in nonpolar organic solvents.     

A new series of pyrimidine-containing linear molecules: their elegant crystal structures and intriguing photophysical properties

A new series of aza-substituted analogues 3-5 based on the 1,4-bis(phenylethynyl)benzene moiety have been synthesized by the selective Pd-catalyzed Sonogashira coupling reaction from 5-bromo-2-iodopyrimidine (1). In these linear molecules, the dipolar pyrimidine moiety is introduced as a probe to investigate factors that control the intermolecular interactions over the crystal engineering. The results reveal that the manner of packing changes both dipolar interactions between linear pyrimidine-containing molecules and transition moments simultaneously, resulting in remarkably different photophysical properties. Due to their versatile dipole-dipole and face-to-face pi-piinteractions in a crystal motif, further applications on the design of ordered crystalline materials for the field effect transistors are promising.