Application of a dispersive micro‐solid‐phase extraction method for pre‐concentration and ultra‐trace determination of cadmium ions in water and biological samples

A method for the trace determination of cadmium ions in water, human urine and human blood serum samples using ultrasonic‐assisted dispersive micro‐solid‐phase extraction (UA‐D‐μSPE) was developed. Silica‐coated magnetic nanoparticles were coated with polythiophene, and the resulting sorbent was characterized using thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry and X‐ray diffraction. Following UA‐D‐μSPE, cadmium ions were quantified using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. A Box–Behnken design was used for optimization of important sorption and desorption parameters in UA‐D‐μSPE: in the sorption step, pH of solution, sorption amount and sonication time for sorption; in the desorption step, concentration of eluent, volume of eluent and sonication time. The optimum conditions for the method were: pH of solution, 7.5; sonication time for sorption, 3 min; sorption amount, 35 mg; type and concentration of eluent, HCl and 1.1 mol l^?1; volume of eluent, 360 μl; sonication time for desorption, 110 s. Under the optimized conditions the limit of detection and relative standard deviation for the detection of cadmium ions by UA‐D‐μSPE were found to be 0.8 ng l^?1 and <6%, respectively.     

Cu(II) immobilized on mesoporous organosilica as an efficient and reusable nanocatalyst for one‐pot Biginelli reaction under solvent‐free conditions

Cu(II) immobilized on mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (Cu²⁺@MSNs‐(CO₂^?)₂) has been synthesized, as a inorganic–organic nanohybrid catalyst, through a post‐grafting approach. Its characterization is carried out by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Energy dispersive X‐ray (EDX), Thermogravimetric/differential thermal analyses (TGA‐DTA), and Nitrogen adsorption–desorption analysis. Cu²⁺@MSNs‐(CO₂^?)₂ exhibits high catalytic activity in the Biginelli reaction for the synthesis of a diverse range of 3, 4‐dihydropyrimidin‐2(1H)‐ones, under mild conditions. The anchored Cu(II) could not leach out from the surface of the mesoporous catalyst during the reaction and it has been reused several times without appreciable loss in its catalytic activity.     

Fabrication of ZnSe Thin Solid Films on the Cu Substrate and Investigation of Electrochemical,Adhesion and Solar Cell Properties by a New Technique

Russian Journal of Electrochemistry - Zinc selenide has applications in the fabrication of low-cost solar cells and optoelectronic devices. Due to its optical properties and large direct bandgap,...     

Electrochemical platform for simultaneous determination of levodopa,acetaminophen and tyrosine using a graphene and ferrocene modified carbon paste electrode

Microchimica Acta - A carbon paste electrode (CPE) was modified with graphene and ethyl 2-(4-ferrocenyl-[1,2,3]triazol-1-yl) acetate (EFTA) and used for electrocatalytic oxidation of levodopa....     

An active and selective heterogeneous catalytic system for Michael addition

Potassium fluoride doped natural zeolite was found to be an efficient and selective solid base catalyst for 1,4-Michael addition. The catalyst is easily prepared and the workup procedure simplified by simple filtration.All products were obtained in high yields as well as short reaction times.     

Mathematical modeling of a slurry reactor for DME direct synthesis from syngas

In this paper,an axial dispersion mathematical model is developed to simulate a three-phase slurry bubble column reactor for direct synthesis of dimethyl ether(DME) from syngas.This large-scale reactor is modeled using mass and energy balances,catalyst sedimentation andsingle-bubble as well as two-bubbles class flow hydrodynamics.A comparison between the two hydrodynamic models through pilot plantexperimental data from the literature shows that heterogeneous two-bubbles flow model is in better agreement with the experimental data thanhomogeneous single-bubble gas flow model.Also,by investigating the heterogeneous gas flow and axial dispersion model for small bubblesas well as the large bubbles and slurry(i.e.including paraffins and the catalyst) phase,the temperature profile along the reactor is obtained.Acomparison between isothermal and non-isothermal reactors reveals no obvious performance difference between them.The optimum values ofreactor diameter and height were obtained at 7 m and 50 m,respectively.The effects of operating variables on the axial catalyst distribution,DME productivity and CO conversion are also investigated in this research.     

Direct asymmetric Michael addition of ketones to chalcones catalyzed by a hydroxyphthalimide derived triazole–pyrrolidine

An efficient protocol for the enantioselective Michael additions of ketones to chalcones catalyzed by a hydroxyphthalimide linked triazole–pyrrolidine derivative has been developed. The corresponding products, 1,5-dicarbonyl compounds, were obtained in good yields with high levels of stereoselectivities under mild reaction conditions employing benzoic acid as an additive.     

Predictive control of uncertain nonlinear parabolic PDE systems using a Galerkin/neural-network-based model

In this paper, a model predictive control (MPC) scheme for a class of parabolic partial differential equation (PDE) systems with unknown nonlinearities, arising in the context of transport-reaction processes, is proposed. A spatial operator of a parabolic PDE system is characterized by a spectrum that can be partitioned into a finite slow and an infinite fast complement. In this view, first, Galerkin method is used to derive a set of finite dimensional slow ordinary differential equation (ODE) system that captures the dominant dynamics of the initial PDE system. Then, a Multilayer Neural Network (MNN) is employed to parameterize the unknown nonlinearities in the resulting finite dimensional ODE model. Finally, a Galerkin/neural-network-based ODE model is used to predict future states in the MPC algorithm. The proposed controller is applied to stabilize an unstable steady-state of the temperature profile of a catalytic rod subject to input and state constraints.     

Epimorphisms, dominions and seminormal identities II

We associate two natural numbers with a seminormal identity depending on the first and the last occurrences of two two-letter subwords of the left hand side which are not subwords of its right hand side. Using these natural numbers, we find some classes of heterotypical identities where both sides contain repeated variables that are preserved under epis in conjunction with a seminormal identity.