Binding studies of sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate with poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone)

The binding of sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate (SDBS) with poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP) has been investigated at 303.15 and 313.15 K using equilibrium dialysis, surface tension, viscosity, ultrasound velocity and ultrasound absorption techniques. From each of these studies four distinct regions of SDBS-PVP interactions were observed. Interaction of SDBS with PVP was found to involve the binding of surfactant dimers with the polymer molecule followed by usual micellization. The binding data has been analyzed in terms of various models of polymer-surfactant interaction.     

Supercritical fluid chromatographic analysis of polyprenols in Ginkgo biloba L

A supercritical fluid chromatographic (SFC) procedure for the quantitation of three major polyprenols present in the leaves of Ginkgo biloba was developed. In contrast to previously reported high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) methods, the SFC method does not require extensive pre-purification for polyprenol analysis. The SFC analytical procedure described shows a very broad range of linearity and detects many known polyprenol isoprenologs with baseline separation. Dodecaprenol was used as the internal standard. The coefficient of variation of the method was 5.8% for the quantitation of C₈₅, C₉₀ and C₉₅ polyprenols. The SFC assay results showed that the content of polyprenols in ginkgo leaves were higher than the previously published values. In addition, the chromatogram of the highly concentrated leaf extract revealed the presence of an isoprenolog (C₁₂₀) not previously detected by HPLC methods.     

Structural changes by sulfoxidation of phenothiazine drugs

Summary The side-chain conformations of psychoactive phenothiazine drugs in crystals are different from those of biologically inactive ring sulfoxide metabolites. This study examines the potential energies, molecular conformations and electrostatic potentials in chlorpromazine, levomepromazine (methotrimeprazine), their sulfoxide metabolites and methoxypromazine. The purpose of the study was to examine the significance of the different crystal conformations of active and inactive phenothiazine derivatives, and to determine why phenothiazine drugs lose most of their biological activity by sulfoxidation. Quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics calculations demonstrated that conformations with the side chain folded over the ring structure had lowest potential energy in vacuo, both in the drugs and in the sulfoxide metabolites. In the sulfoxides, side chain conformations corresponding to the crystal structure of chlorpromazine sulfoxide were characterized by stronger negative electrostatic potentials around the ring system than in the parent drugs. This may weaken the electrostatic interaction of sulfoxide metabolites with negatively charged domains in dopamine receptors, and cause the sulfoxides to be virtually inactive in dopamine receptor binding and related pharmacological tests.     

Spectrofluorimetric determination of molybdenum in some real and environmental samples

A very simple, highly-sensitive and selective quenchofluorimetric method for the rapid determination of molybdenum(VI) in aqueous media is described. The method is based on the instantaneous quenching action by the metal-ion upon the native fluorescence of bathophenanthrolinedisulphonate (4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthrolinedisulphonate) solution [lambda(ex) (max) 288 nm; lambda(em) (max) 444.8 nm] in the optimum pH-range of 3.0-3.7 at room temperature (25 +/- 5 degrees ). The fluorescence quenching is co-linear in the range of 0.01-1.0 ppm molybdenum. Large excesses of over 50 cations, anions and some common complexing agents were found to have no interference. Cu, Ni, Co, Fe and V can be tolerated only up to the corresponding amount of molybdenum. Interference from greater amounts can however be removed by a one-step ion-exchange separation process. The developed method was successfully tested over several standard alloys, synthetic mixtures of various compositions, factory effluents and in spiked environmental waters.     

Electron impact mass spectra of 1-methyl-3-(2-benzothiazolylhydrazono)-2-indolinones

A study of the fragmentation of l-methyl-3-(2-benzothiazolylhydrazono)-2-indolinones on electron impact reveals that the major processes involve N? N bond fission and the competing loss of CO from the molecular ion.     

Mechanism of ruthenium tetroxide-catalysed oxidation of aldoses by alkalineN-bromoacetamide

The kinetics of oxidation of three aldoses (glucose, mannose and galactose) byN-bromoacetamide (NBA) in the presence of an alkaline solution of RuO₄ as catalyst and Hg(OAc)₂ as co-catalyst and as a scavenger for bromide have been investigated. The main products of the oxidation are the corresponding aldonic acids. The reaction is zero order with respect to aldose and OH⁻. First order dependence of the reaction on both NBA and RuO₄ at low concentrations shifts to zero order at higher concentrations. Addition of acetamide decreases the reaction rate, while addition of Hg(OAc)₂ has the opposite effect. No significant effect of ionic strength was observed. OBr⁻ is postulated as the reactive oxidising species and a mechanism involving co-catalysis by RuO₄ and Hg^II is proposed. TMC 2588     

A Bianchi type-II dark-energy cosmology with a decaying Λ-term in the Brans–Dicke theory of gravity

We present a sequence of anisotropic Bianchi type-II dark-energy models in the framework of the Brans–Dicke theory of gravity with a variable equation of state (EoS) parameter and a constant deceleration parameter. We use power-law relations between the scalar field φ and the scale factor A and between the average Hubble parameter H and the average scale factor A to obtain most of the analytic solutions. The dark-energy EoS parameter ω and its range admitted by the models agrees well with the most recent observational data. It has been observed that the cosmological constant Λ is decreasing with time, which is consistent with recent cosmological observations. We study the dynamical stability and physical features of the models.     

Multi-objective Geometry Optimization of a Gas Cyclone Using Triple-Fidelity Co-Kriging Surrogate Models

Cyclone separators are widely used in a variety of industrial applications. A low-mass loading gas cyclone is characterized by two performance parameters, namely the Euler and Stokes numbers. These parameters are highly sensitive to the geometrical design parameters defining the cyclone. Optimizing the cyclone geometry therefore is a complex problem. Testing a large number of cyclone geometries is impractical due to time constraints. Experimental data and even computational fluid dynamics simulations are time-consuming to perform, with a single simulation or experiment taking several weeks. Simpler analytical models are therefore often used to expedite the design process. However, this comes at the cost of model accuracy. Existing techniques used for cyclone shape optimization in literature do not take multiple fidelities into account. This work combines cheap-to-evaluate well-known mathematical models of cyclones, available data from computational fluid dynamics simulations and experimental data to build a triple-fidelity recursive co-Kriging model. This model can be used as a surrogate with a multi-objective optimization algorithm to identify a Pareto set of a finite number of solutions. The proposed scheme is applied to optimize the cyclone geometry, parametrized by seven design variables.