Strong adhesion and smooth conductive surface via graft polymerization of aniline on a modified glass fiber surface

The goal of this paper is to prepare surface-conductive glass fibers. The fibers were first hydroxylated, after which they were reacted with 3-bromopropyltrichlorosilane to form a bromopropylsilane monolayer, which was further reacted with aniline to substitute the bromine atoms. The surface-bound aniline molecules were used as active sites for the graft polymerization of polyaniline (PANI). The composition, structure and the morphology of the modified glass fiber surface were examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The method generated a smooth and homogenous thin layer of PANI on the surface of the glass fiber with a surface conductivity of about 6 S/cm, hence larger than the usual value ( approximately 1 S/cm) of the bulk polyaniline.     

Separation and detection of oxidation products of fluorodeoxyglucose and glucose by high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry

2-Deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose ([18F] FDG), the most popular positron emitting radiopharmaceutical, may oxidise by autoradiolysis in aqueous solution. The aim of this work was to use LC-MS for determination of the oxidation products of fluorodeoxyglucose and glucose (Glc) obtained by oxidation with Fenton's reagent. Asahipak NH2P-50 polyamide silica column and acetonitrile-0.025% aqueous ammonium formate (80:20 (v/v)) eluent were utilised with an Agilent 1100 HPLC-MS instrument. Ten major oxidation products of FDG and Glc were separated and identified by mass spectrometry: 2-fluorogluconic acid, 2-fluoroglucuronic acid, 2-oxoerythronic acid, arabinose, arabonic acid, araburonic acid, erythrose, erythrulose, gluconic acid, and glucuronic acid. The most intensive electrospray ionisation signals were found in the negative ion spectra and were due to HCOO- adducts, the other acids being in their lactone forms.     

Spectrophotometric investigation of the reaction of eriochrome cyanin RC and magnesium and aluminium

The reaction of magnesium or aluminium ions with Eriochrome Cyanin RC in alkaline medium leads to formation of a complex of type ML. The molar absorptivities of the complexes are 1.90 +/- 0.14 x 10(3)1. mole(-1).cm(-1) at 570 nm for the magnesium complex and 3.87 +/- 0.04 x 10(4) at 555 nm for the aluminium complex. The conditional stability constants of the complexes were determined at various pH values, and hence the overall formation constants, which were found to be log beta(111) = 8.65 +/- 0.06 for MgOHL, log beta(121) = 22.29 +/- 0.05 for AlH(2)L, log beta(111) = 18.25 +/- 0.14 for AlHL, and log beta(101) = 13.66 +/- 0.01 for AlL.     

Potentiometric titrations in methanol/water medium: Intertitration variability

Homogeneous sets of data from strong acid-strong base potentiometric titrations in a mixed solvent medium (9:1 v/v methanol/water), performed by means of the glass electrode, at various constant ionic strengths and with different reference electrodes, have been analysed by statistical criteria. A standardized procedure has been established to obtain reliable potentiometric data in mixed solvents. It has been demonstrated how, with the aid of a proper linearized model, analysis of variance (ANOVA) applied to the standardization titrations can be used to test the reliability of a potentiometric chain in a medium other than pure water. The error expected in the stability constants thus evaluated is related to the intertitration error of the operational pK*(')(w), for the same medium and the same chain. The results obtained by applying ANOVA to the mixed solvent data substantially confirm the trend found for aqueous media, the intertitration error being larger than the intratitration error for all the parameters investigated (E(')(0), pK*(')(w), mean equivalence volume). The stochastic error thus obtained depends on the ionic medium used and on the kind of reference electrode employed in the electrochemical chain.     

A simplified monobuffer multidimensional chromatography for high-throughput proteome fractionation

The complexity of the human serum proteome is attributed to both a large dynamic range of protein abundance, as much as 10 orders of magnitude, and a disproportionate few dozens of proteins representing as much as 99% of the total protein content. These characteristics make it beneficial to use a pre-fractionation step prior to any high-resolution analysis, such as mass spectrometry. The present method describes a unimodal multidimensional chromatography concept to rapidly achieve an effective fractionation of human serum that is directly amenable with surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization (SELDI)-based mass spectrometry. This method is based on the use of a column composed of a superimposed sequence of sorbents. The assembly is first equilibrated with a single binding buffer and then loaded with the whole crude sample. As the sample crosses the different adsorbent layers proteins within are sequentially trapped according to the complementary properties vis-a-vis of the sorbent. Once the loading and capturing is achieved, the sequence of columns is disassembled and each column, containing different complement of proteins is eluted separately in a single step and under optimal elution conditions. When compared to classical single-chemistry fractionation based on, for example, anion-exchange and pH stepwise elution, the new proposed approach shows much lower protein overlap between fractions, and therefore, greater resolution. This results in a larger number of detectable species, and therefore, reinforces the power of discovery of new biomarkers. A significantly higher sensitivity for low-abundance species was additionally found as evidenced by spiking trials.     

Dissociation constants of phenols in methanol--water mixtures

A preferential solvation model that relates solute properties with solvent composition in binary mixtures has been applied to the dissociation pKa values of a set of 28 substituted phenols in methanol-water mixtures. The parameters of the model allow estimation of the pKa value of each phenol for any methanol-water composition. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the pKa values of the whole set of phenols at any methanol-water composition are linearly related to the pKa values of the phenols in water. Equations that relate the correlations' slope and intercept values with the solvent composition have been derived and tested with the set of phenols. The general parameters obtained for these equations allow an accurate calculation of the pKa value of any phenol, even of those not included in the original set, at any methanol-water composition solely from the pKa value of the phenol in water. These calculated pKa values can be used for quantitative structure-HPLC retention relationships. The method is tested by comparison of the calculated pKa values with the HPLC determined pKa values of 26 phenols in a polymeric column with a 50% methanol as mobile phase.