Determination of cerium(III) ions in soil and sediment samples by Ce(III) PVC-based membrane electrode based on 2,5-dioxo-4-imidazolidinyl

2,5-Dioxo-4-imidazolidinyl was used as an excellent sensing material in the preparation of a PVC membrane for a Ce(III)-selective sensor. The electrode shows a good selectivity for the Ce(III) ion with respect to most common cations including alkali, alkaline earth, transition, and heavy metal ions. The developed sensor exhibits a wide linear response with a slope of 19.6?±?0.3 mV per decade over the concentration range of 1.0?×?10^?6 to 1.0?×?10^?1 M, while the illustrated detection limit is 5.7?×?10^?7 M of Ce(III) ions. Moreover, it is concluded that the sensor response is pH-independent in the range of 3.1–9.8. The applications of the recommended electrode include the determination of concentration of Ce(III) ions in soil and sediment samples, validation with CRM's, and the Ce(III) ion potentiometric titration with EDTA as an indicator electrode.     

Rapid and sensitive determination of biphenyl and biphenyl oxide in water samples using dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction followed by gas chromatography

A rapid and sensitive method has been developed for the determination of biphenyl and biphenyl oxide in water samples using dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction followed by gas chromatography. This method involves the use of an appropriate mixture of extraction solvent (8.0?µL tetrachloroethylene) and disperser solvent (1.0?mL acetonitrile) for the formation of cloudy solution in 5.0?mL aqueous sample containing biphenyl and biphenyl oxide. After extraction, phase separation was performed by centrifugation and biphenyl and biphenyl oxide in sedimented phase (5.0?±?0.3?µL) were determined by gas chromatography-flame ionisation (GC-FID) system. Type of extraction and disperser solvents and their volumes, salt effect on the extraction recovery of biphenyl and biphenyl oxide from aqueous solution have been investigated. Under the optimum conditions and without salt addition, the enrichment factors for biphenyl and biphenyl oxide were 819 and 785, while the extraction recovery were 81.9% and 78.5%, respectively. The linear range was (0.125–100?µg L^?1) and limit of detection was (0.015?µg?L^?1) for both analytes. The relative standard deviation (RSD, n?=?4) for 5.0?µg?L^?1 of analytes were 8.4% and 6.7% for biphenyl and biphenyl oxide, respectively. The relative recoveries of biphenyl and biphenyl oxide from sea, river water and refined water (Paksan company) samples at spiking level of 5.0?µg?L^?1 were between 85.0% and 100 %.     

A selective modified nanoporous silica as sorbent for separation and preconcentration of dysprosium in water samples prior to ICP-OES determination

In this research a new physically functionalized nanoporous silica (SBA-15) using N′-[(2-hydroxy phenyl) methylene] benzohydrazide (BBH) was utilized as a selective sorbent for the separation, preconcentration and determination of dysprosium (Dy) in natural water by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The selectivity of BBH to Dy (III) ion was previously tested by conductometric and spectroscopic methods. Conditions for effective adsorption of Dy were optimized with respect to experimental parameters in batch process. The extraction recovery was 96.5, analytical curve was linear in the range 0.2–1000?µgL^?1, and the detection limit was 0.05?ng?mL^?1. The relative standard deviation (RSD) under optimal conditions was 3.2% (n?=?10). The sorbent exhibited high adsorption capacity and fast rate of equilibrium for sorption of Dy ions. The method was applied for recovery and determination of dysprosium in different environmental water samples.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Zinc Oxide Nano-particles by Solid State Chemical Reaction Method

Several important synthetic parameters such as precursor concentration, reaction time are found to determine the growth of ZnO nanostructures. These reaction parameters can be tuned to produce a variety size of nanostructures. In this work we show the importance of these parameters on the size of synthesized zinc oxide nano-powders. ZnO nanoparticles are synthesized by the solid-state reaction using ZnSO₄·7H₂O and NaOH as the reagents. In this method Zn(OH)₂ is the intermediate product of the reaction, we show that by adjusting the molar ratio of the reagents and grinding time, we can be removed this unwanted component in the final product so for obtaining pure ZnO nanostructures the calcinations process is not necessary, also we can tune the size of ZnO nanoparticles. XRD spectra of the nanoparticles demonstrate typical diffraction peaks of a well-crystalline Wurtzite ZnO structure transmission electron microscopic observations show that these nanoparticles are of hexagonal phase ZnO mostly in round shapes and he composition analysis by EDX indicate that final product is pure ZnO. In the optimum conditions by XRD analysis we see that the mean grain size of synthesized zinc oxide nano-particles is about 44 nm.     

Accurate fourteenth-order methods for solving nonlinear equations

We establish new iterative methods of local order fourteen to approximate the simple roots of nonlinear equations. The considered three-step eighth-order construction can be viewed as a variant of Newton’s method in which the concept of Hermite interpolation is used at the third step to reduce the number of evaluations. This scheme includes three evaluations of the function and one evaluation of the first derivative per iteration, hence its efficiency index is 1.6817. Next, the obtained approximation for the derivative of the Newton’s iteration quotient is again taken into consideration to furnish novel fourteenth-order techniques consuming four function and one first derivative evaluations per iteration. In providing such new fourteenth-order methods, we also take a special heed to the computational burden. The contributed four-step methods have 1.6952 as their efficiency index. Finally, various numerical examples are given to illustrate the accuracy of the developed techniques.     

Application of perforated sheets to improve the efficiency of reactive profiled noise barriers

The scope of this paper is to study the performance of noise barriers treated with different diffusers with/without a perforated sheet. We investigated the barrier insertion loss using a 2D boundary element method (BEM). To obtain a better depth sequence, a Random Sequence Diffuser (RSD) was designed. The results clearly showed that employing a "RSD" instead of the most popular Schroeder diffusers (Quadratic Residue Diffuser and Primitive Root Diffuser) increased the acoustic performance. We also found that the diffuser performance improved by treating the diffuser with perforated sheets either on the top surface or inside the wells. The addition of these perforated sheets inside the "RSD" (barrier model "RPI2") improved the performance by 3.59 dB (A).     

Tautomery and acid-base properties of some azoderivatives of benzoylacetone

The structural, tautomeric and acid-base properties of the new 1-phenyl-2-(2-hydroxy-3-sulfo-5-chlorophenylhydrazo)butane-1,3-dione (H₂L¹), 1-phenyl-2-(2-hydroxy-3,5-disulfophenylhydrazo)butane-1,3-dione (H₂L²), 1-phenyl-2-(2-hydroxy-3-sulfo-5-nitrophenylhydrazo)butane-1,3-dione (H₂L³) and 1-phenyl-2-(2-hydroxy-4-nitrophenylhydrazo)butane-1,3-dione (H₂L⁴) were studied using IR, ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectroscopies and potentiometry. The study reveals that H₂L^1-4 and the known 1-phenyl-2-(2-hydroxyphenylhydrazo)butane-1,3-dione (H₂L⁵) exist in solution as a mixture of Z-enol-azo-II and hydrazo-III tautomeric forms and that an increase in the solvent polarity shifts the tautomeric balance to the enol-azo form. The thermodynamic parameters of the proton dissociation in H₂L^1-5 were determined showing that this process is unspontaneous, endothermic and entropically unfavorable.     

Effect of engineered PLGA‐gelatin‐chitosan/PLGA‐gelatin/PLGA‐gelatin‐graphene three‐layer scaffold on adhesion/proliferation of HUVECs

A three‐layered fibrous scaffold composed of fibers of different diameters in each layer was fabricated in correspondence with the structure of the blood vessels. Effect of solution and electrospinning parameters on morphology and diameters of the fibers were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), for each layer. The SEM images showed that 18% poly (lactic‐co‐glycolic acid) (PLGA)‐gelatin‐chitosan in 1,1,1,3,3,3‐hexafluoro‐2‐propanol (HFIP)/acid acetic solution resulted in bead‐free fibers for the outer layer. For the middle layer, 18% PLGA‐gelatin in HFIP at 13 kV with 13 cm needle to collector distance was chosen as the optimum condition. SEM imaging demonstrated that by increasing graphene content from 0.5 to 2 wt% in the inner layer (as an electrically conductive/platelet anti‐adhesion material), the fiber diameter decreased from 324.01 ± 58.90 to 288.59 ± 70.77 nm. The effect of gelatin crosslinking on the microstructure of the fibers was also examined. Shrinkage ratio decreased from 57 to below 21% upon crosslinking of the three‐layered scaffold in exposure to vapor of 50% glutaraldehyde solution for 2 hours. Mechanical test showed that tensile strength of the crosslinked three‐layer scaffold in the longitudinal direction was 2.90 MPa which is comparable to that of the vein and artery. The MTT [3‐(4,5‐Dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl)‐2,5‐diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay displayed cell viability of above 96% for the PLGA‐gelatin containing 2 wt% graphene. SEM analysis revealed that the addition of graphene to PLGA‐gelatin (up to 2%) causes a remarkable improvement in cell adhesion.     

An efficient glucose-based ligand for Heck and Suzuki coupling reactions in aqueous media

The glucose-based ligand, N-salicylidene-d-glucosamine (Sal-d-glsmN), was readily obtained by reaction of salicylaldehyde (Hsal) with the d-glucosamine hydrochloride. Ligand Sal-d-glsmN was found to be an efficient ligand in the palladium-catalyzed Suzuki and Heck C–C coupling reactions in aqueous medium under aerobic condition. It was found that the use of Sal-d-glsmN/Pd(OAc)₂ system as a catalyst, aryl halides undergo Suzuki and Heck cross-couplings, respectively, with arylboronic acids and olefins to give the desired products in moderate to excellent yields.     

AuB2 in comparison to superconducting MgB2-an ab initio study

The noble metal diboride AuB₂, a potential candidate for superconductor, is studied by an ab initio method in comparison to the superconducting MgB₂. The results, described in terms of equilibrium lattice constants, bulk modulus, pressure derivative of bulk modulus and their in- and out-of-plane linear values, volume coefficient of T_c, density of states, band structure, show some similarity as well as dissimilarity between the behaviour of the two compounds. The implications for the behaviour are discussed.