Certified reference materials for the quality control of analysis in the environment

Summary The Community Bureau of Reference (BCR) has undertaken the production of a wide range of certified reference materials (CRMs) for the improvement of accuracy and measurement harmony in various areas of concern at European Community level. This paper provides an overview of the sectors of the BCR-programme in the field of environment i.e. for water systems (water, sediment, biota), soil analysis (soil, fertiliser, waste), plant analysis (aquatic and terrestrial plants), analysis related to animals (e.g. muscle or liver) or man (e.g. industry and food).     

Temperature dependence of the rate constants for reactions of the carbonate radical with organic and inorganic reductants

Rate constants have been measured by pulse radiolysis for the reactions of the carbonate radical, CO₃^·?, with a number of organic and inorganic reactants as a function of temperature, generally over the range 5 to 80°C. The reactants include the substitution-inert cyano complexes of Fe^II, Mo^IV, and W^IV, the simple inorganic anions SO₃^2?, ClO₂^?, NO₂^?, I^?, and SCN^?, several phenolates, ascorbate, tryptophan, cysteine, cystine, methionine, triethylamine, and allyl alcohol. The measured rate constants ranged from less than 10⁵ to 3 × 10⁹ M^?1 s^?1, the activation energies ranged from ?11.4 to 18.8 kJ mol^?1, and the pre-exponential factors ranged from log A = 6.4 to 10.7. The activation energies for the metal complexes and inorganic anions generally decrease with increasing driving force for the reaction, as expected for an outer sphere electron transfer. For highly exothermic reactions, however, the activation energy appears to increase, probably reflecting the temperature dependence of diffusion. For many of the organic reactants, the activation energies were low and independent of driving force, suggesting that the oxidation is via an inner sphere mechanism.     

The inclusion of electrostatic and dispersion interactions into potentials of mean torque for solutes dissolved in uniaxial liquid crystal solvents

A potential of mean torque is derived for a solute at infinite dilution in a uniaxial liquid crystal solvent, which contains terms originating from the dispersion interaction, and the electrostatic interaction between quadrupole moments on both molecules. It is shown that the electrostatic term is non-zero only if the solute-solvent vectors are distributed with lower than spherical symmetry. If this distribution has cylindrical symmetry then both the electrostatic and dispersion terms in the potential of mean torque are shown to depend on order parameters for the orientational distribution of the solute-solvent vectors, as well as on the order parameters of the solvent molecules.     

Certification of the sulphur content of three rapeseed reference materials

Summary The sulphur content of three rapeseed reference materials has been certified on the basis of measurements made by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, isotope-dilution mass spectrometry and ion chromatography. Their suitability for the calibration of x-ray fluorescence spectrometers used for measuring sulphur in rapeseed samples was established.     

Total surface areas of Group IVA organometallic compounds: Predictors of toxicity to algae and bacteria

There is a high correlation between molecular surface area (TSA) of triorganotin and triorganolead compounds and their toxicity towards a bacterium (Escherichia coli) and an alga (Selenastrum capricornutum). Parallel attempts to correlate other Group IVA organometals incorporating silicon or germanium were unsuccessful. It was further demonstrated, however, that a high correlation was obtainable between certain series of compounds with the same organic substituent but different metal centers involving all Group IVA elements. In both instances, the inability to obtain a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) for all systems studied appears to be a function of the solubility of the compounds. While organotin TSA values have been found to correlate well with their toxicities toward various organisms, this study clearly suggests that this type of QSAR can be readily extended to include other organometal systems, provided that there is no solubility problem and the toxicity is a function of the hydrophobicity of the organometal compounds.     

Synthesis of 1-(3-alkyl-2,3-dideoxy-D-pentofuranosyl)uracils with potential anti-HIV activity.

1-(3-Alkyl-2,3-dideoxy-alpha,beta-D-erythro-pentofuranosyl)uracils and 1-(3-alkyl-2,3-dideoxy-alpha,beta-D-threo-pentofuranosyl)uracils have been prepared from (E)-4,5-di-O-acetyl-2,3-dideoxy-aldehydo-D-glycero-pent-2-enose by a Michael addition reaction of the appropriate organocopper reagent followed in subsequent order by glycosidation of the resulting 3-alkyl-4,5-diacetoxypentanal with methanolic hydrogen chloride, protection with p-methoxybenzoyl chloride, and trimethylsilyl triflate catalyzed coupling with 2,4-di-O-(trimethylsilyl)uracil. The nucleosides were deprotected by treatment with 33% methylamine in absolute ethanol and separated by reversed-phase HPLC.     

Photothermal techniques applied to the determination of the water vapor diffusion coefficient and thermal diffusivity of edible films.

Water vapor diffusion coefficient (WVDC) and thermal diffusivity (alpha) were determined in gelatin-starch films through photothermal techniques. The effect of different variables in the elaboration of these films, such as starch and glycerol concentrations and pH, were evaluated through the response surface methodology. The results indicated that an increase in the glycerol concentration and pH favored the WVDC of the films. On the other hand, alpha was influenced principally by the starch content and pH of the film-forming solution. The minimum alpha value was 4.5 x 10(-4) cm2/s, which is compared with alpha values reported for commercial synthetic polymers.