Laboratory and Industrial Applications of Microwave Techniques

The use of microwave techniques in scientific research is reviewed. Also some semicommercial-scale microwave units are examined.     

High-Sensitivity Determination of Hydrocarbon Impurities in Arsine by Reaction Gas Chromatography

It is shown that the results of determining methane in high-purity arsine by reaction gas chromatography can be overestimated by more than two orders of magnitude. This overestimation is caused by the formation of methane as a side product of the reaction. Cryogenic preconcentration at the injection stage is proposed to improve the accuracy of determination of methane, and the cryofocusing of impurity hydrocarbons is proposed to improve separation. Detection limits of (3–10) × 10^–6 vol % are achieved for C₁–C₅ hydrocarbons.     

Synthesis of Aryl Ethers by Nonactivated Aromatic Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions

The results of a kinetic study of model reactions between substituted phenols and bromobenzene in the presence of potassium carbonate and the copper(I) chloride–8-hydroxyquinoline catalytic complex in N,N-dimethylformamide are presented. The reactions were found to obey a first-order rate law. Both orbital and charge interactions should be taken into account in a consideration of the effect of the structural characteristics of reactants on the rate of reaction. The kinetics of substitution of the phenoxide anion for an aromatically bound halogen atom in activated and nonactivated systems with the formation of practically valuable aryl ethers were comparatively studied. The results presented provide an opportunity to distinguish the common features and regularities of activated and nonactivated aromatic substitution in the test systems.     

Indirect laser photoacoustic detection for trace samples on membranes

An indirect laser photoacoustic technique is described. The basic principle, the experimental set-up and the influencing factors are discussed in detail. This method was used to quantify phenylamine, arginine and methylene blue on membranes. The linear ranges of the calibration curve are up to two orders of magnitude. With 1 microliter of sample solution, the detection limits are 0.25, 1.52 and 0.14 pmol for phenylamine, arginine and methylene blue, respectively.