Monitoring of estrogens, pesticides and bisphenol A in natural waters and drinking water treatment plants by solid-phase extraction-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

A multi-residue analytical method has been developed for the determination of various classes of selected endocrine disruptors. This method allows the simultaneous extraction and quantification of different estrogens (estradiol, estrone, estriol, estradiol-17-glucuronide, estradiol diacetate, estrone-3-sulfate, ethynyl estradiol and diethylstilbestrol), pesticides (atrazine, simazine, desethylatrazine, isoproturon and diuron), and bisphenol A in natural waters. In the method developed, 500 ml of water are preconcentrated on LiChrolut RP-18 cartridges. Further analysis is carried out by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) using atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI) in the positive ion mode for determination of pesticides and electrospray in the negative ionisation mode for determination of estrogens and bisphenol A. Recoveries for most compounds were between 90 and 119%, except for bisphenol A (81%) and diethylstilbestrol (70%), with relative standard deviations below 20%. Limits of detection ranged between 2 and 15 ng/l. The method was used to study the occurrence of the selected pollutants in surface and groundwater used for abstraction of drinking water in a waterworks and to evaluate the removal efficiency of the different water treatments applied. Water samples from the river, the aquifer, and after each treatment stage (sand filtration, ozonation, activated carbon filtration and post-chlorination) were taken monthly from February to August of 2002. The presence in river water of atrazine, simazine, diuron and bisphenol A were relatively frequent at concentrations usually below 0.1 microg/l. Lower levels, below 0.02 microg/l, were usual for isoproturon. Estrone-3-sulfate and estrone were detected occasionally in the river. Most of the compounds were completely removed during the water treatment, especially after activated carbon filtration.     

Multianalyte determination of different classes of pesticides (acidic,triazines, phenyl ureas,anilines, organophosphates,molinate and propanil) by liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry

This work describes the optimization of a liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS-MS) method for the multianalyte determination of twenty pesticides, selected based on current regulations and extent of use. Chromatographic separation was carried out on a Purospher STAR RP-18e column using gradient acetonitrile-water as mobile phase. Triazines, phenylureas, organophosphates, anilines, and molinate were determined in the positive ionization mode, and acidic pesticides and propanil in the negative ion mode. Two different precursor ion-product ion transitions were selected for each analyte and monitored under time scheduled multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) conditions. The optimized method was shown to be linear in the range 1 to 1000 ng/mL with correlation coefficients higher than 0.99 for all but one (diazinon) of the analytes, very sensitive (with limits of detection between 0.010 and 4.528 ng/mL), and repeatable (with relative standard deviations, calculated from the replicate analysis of standard mixtures, lower than 14%). The present work was also devoted to the elucidation of the structures of the principal fragment ions obtained after collision-induced dissociation of the pesticides investigated, an aspect often overlooked in the literature.     

Essay: Preheating and Turbulence: Echoes of a Not So Quiet Universe

We study the nonlinear decay of the inflaton which causes the reheating of the Universe in the transition from the inflationary phase to the radiation dominated phase, resulting in the creation of almost all matter constituting the present Universe. Our treatment allows us to follow the full dynamics of the system in a long time regime, and to describe not only the parametric resonance processes with nonlinear restructuring but also to characterize a final turbulent state in the dynamics by which the energy is nonlinearly transferred to all scales of the system with a consequent thermalization of the created matter.     

Static structure of sodium polystyrene sulfonate solutions obtained through a coarse-grained model

We present a model based on effective pair interactions to describe the arrangement of sodium polystyrene sulfonate chains in suspension. The potential functions are obtained from the analysis of all-atom simulations and they are the main ingredient of a Brownian dynamics simulation. The resulting configurations are used to reconstruct the corresponding scattering intensity spectra that have the main features of experimental patterns. This coarse-grained model in conjunction with the reconstruction scheme allows us to gain some insights on the structural properties of a polyelectrolyte in solution.     

Weighted estimates for the multisublinear maximal function

A formulation of the Carleson embedding theorem in the multilinear setting is proved which allows obtaining a multilinear analogue of Sawyer’s two weight theorem for the multisublinear maximal function $\mathcal{M }$ introduced by Lerner et al. (Adv Math 220:1222–1264, 2009). A multilinear version of the $B_p$ theorem from Hytönen and Pérez (Anal PDE, 2013) is also obtained and a mixed $A_{\overrightarrow{ P}}-W_{\overrightarrow{ P}}^{\infty }$ bound for $\mathcal{M }$ is proved as well.     

Specific interaction of citrate with bis(fluorophoric) bibrachial lariat aza-crown in comparison with the other components of the Krebs cycle

Among the Krebs cycle components, just citrate enhances the fluorescence of a new bi(brachial) lariat aza-crown containing appended naphthalene fluorophores.     

Modeling heme proteins using atomistic simulations

Heme proteins are found in all living organisms, and perform a wide variety of tasks ranging from electron transport, to the oxidation of organic compounds, to the sensing and transport of small molecules. In this work we review the application of classical and quantum-mechanical atomistic simulation tools to the investigation of several relevant issues in heme proteins chemistry: (i) conformational analysis, ligand migration, and solvation effects studied using classical molecular dynamics simulations; (ii) electronic structure and spin state energetics of the active sites explored using quantum-mechanics (QM) methods; (iii) the interaction of heme proteins with small ligands studied through hybrid quantum mechanics-molecular mechanics (QM-MM) techniques; (iv) and finally chemical reactivity and catalysis tackled by a combination of quantum and classical tools.     

Adsorption of mercury ions by mercapto-functionalized amorphous silica

Amorphous silicas have been functionalized by two different methods. In the heterogeneous route the silylating agent, 3-chloropropyltriethoxysilane, was initially immobilized onto the silica surface to give the chlorinated silica Cl-Sil. In a second reaction, multifunctionalized N,S donor compounds were incorporated to obtain the functionalized silicas, which are denoted as L-Sil-Het (where L=mercaptothiazoline, mercaptopyridine or mercaptobenzothiazole). In the homogeneous route, the functionalization was achieved through a one-step reaction between the silica and an organic ligand containing the chelating functions; this gave the modified silicas denoted as L-Sil-Hom. The functionalized silicas were characterized by elemental analysis, IR spectroscopy and thermogravimetry. These materials were employed as adsorbents for mercury cations from aqueous and acetone solutions at room temperature. The results indicate that, in all cases, mercury adsorption was higher in the modified silicas prepared by the homogeneous method. Figure