Copper(II)–neocuproine reagent for spectrophotometric determination of captopril in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations

A simple, rapid, sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric method for the determination of captopril in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations is developed. The procedure is based on the reaction of copper(II) with captopril in the presence of neocuproine (NC) (2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline) reagent in acetate buffer at pH 5.0. Copper(II) is reduced easily by captopril to Cu(I)–neocuproine complex, which shows an absorption maximum at 448 nm. Beer’s law was obeyed in the concentration range 0.3–3.0 μg mL^?1 with a minimum detection limit (LOD) of 0.039 μg mL^?1 and a quantification limit (LOQ) of 0.129 μg mL^?1. For more accurate results, Ringbom optimum concentration ranges was 0.5–2.7 μg mL^?1. The apparent molar absorbtivity and Sandell sensitivity were calculated. The validity of the proposed method was tested by analyzing the pure and pharmaceutical formulations and compared well with those obtained by the official method and demonstrated good accuracy and precision.     

Ultra-sensitive voltammetric sensor for trace analysis of carbamazepine

A multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) film-coated glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was used for the voltammetric determination of carbamazepine (CBZ). The results showed that this simple modified electrode exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidation of CBZ. The voltammetric response of CBZ at this film-modified electrode increased significantly when compared with that at a bare glassy carbon electrode and the sensor response was reproducible. The proposed method was applied to the quantification of CBZ in wastewater samples, collected in a municipal wastewater treatment plant, and in pharmaceutical formulations. The developed methodology yields results in accord with those obtained by chromatographic techniques commonly used in the quantification of pharmaceutical compounds in real samples. Good recoveries have been obtained and the limits of detection and quantification (40 and 140 nM, respectively) are among the lowest that have been reported to date for this pharmaceutical compound using voltammetric techniques.     

Analysis of augmented three-field macro-hybrid mixed finite element schemes

On the basis of composition duality principles, augmented three-field macro- hybrid mixed variational problems and finite element schemes are analyzed. The compatibility condition adopted here, for compositional dualization, is the coupling operator surjectivity, property that expresses in a general operator sense the Ladyenskaja-Babuka-Brezzi inf-sup condition. Variational macro-hybridization is performed under the assumption of decomposable primal and dual spaces relative to nonoverlapping domain decomp...     

Technologies Employed in the Treatment of Water Contaminated with Glyphosate: A Review

Glyphosate [N-(phosphonomethyl)-glycine] is a herbicide with several commercial formulations that are used generally in agriculture for the control of various weeds. It is the most used pesticide in the world and comprises multiple constituents (coadjutants, salts, and others) that help to effectively reach the action’s mechanism in plants. Due to its extensive and inadequate use, this herbicide has been frequently detected in water, principally in surface and groundwater nearest to agricultural areas. Its presence in the aquatic environment poses chronic and remote hazards to human health and the environment. Therefore, it becomes necessary to develop treatment processes to remediate aquatic environments polluted with glyphosate, its metabolites, and/or coadjutants. This review is focused on conventional and non-conventional water treatment processes developed for water polluted with glyphosate herbicide; it describes the fundamental mechanism of water treatment processes and their applications are summarized. It addressed biological processes (bacterial and fungi degradation), physicochemical processes (adsorption, membrane filtration), advanced oxidation processes—AOPs (photocatalysis, electrochemical oxidation, photo-electrocatalysis, among others) and combined water treatment processes. Finally, the main operating parameters and the effectiveness of treatment processes are analyzed, ending with an analysis of the challenges in this field of research.     

A new approach to solve complex valued systems arising from the solution of Maxwell equations in the frequency domain through real‐equivalent formulations

The purpose of this article is to propose algebraic techniques to solve symmetric complex‐valued systems. In particular, we focus on the systems which arise from the modeling of electromagnetic fields in the frequency domain. These systems usually present a very ill‐conditioned number, so specific preconditioning techniques are supposed to be used. Finally, both analytical and numerical reference tests are proposed on the simple case of the magnetic field produced by a solenoid containing conductive or non‐conducting materials.     

A compact formulation of a mixed-integer set

We consider mixed-integer sets of the form X = {(s, y) ∈ ?₊ × ? ⁿ : s + a _j y _j ≥ b _j , ?j ∈ N}. A polyhedral characterization for the case where X is defined by two inequalities is provided. From that characterization we give a compact formulation for the particular case where the coefficients of the integer variables can take only two possible integer values a ₁, a ₂ ∈ ?₊ : X _n,m = {(s, y) ∈ ?₊ × ? ^n+m : s + a ₁ y _j ≥ b _j , ?j ∈ N ₁, s + a ₂ y _j ≥ b _j , j ∈ N ₂} where N ₁ = {1, …, n}, N ₂ = {n + 1, …, n + m}. In addition, we discuss families of facet-defining inequalities for the convex hull of X _n,m .     

An efficient edge‐based level set finite element method for free surface flow problems

We present an efficient technique for the solution of free surface flow problems using level set and a parallel edge‐based finite element method. An unstructured semi‐explicit solution scheme is proposed. A custom data structure, obtained by blending node‐based and edge‐based approaches is presented so to allow a good parallel performance. In addition to standard velocity extrapolation (for the convection of the level set function), an explicit extrapolation of the pressure field is performed in order to impose both the pressure boundary condition and the volume conservation. The latter is also improved with a modification of the divergence free constrain. The method is shown to allow an efficient solution of both simple benchmark cases and complex industrial examples. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of a New Coated Graphite Phenylephrine Potentiometric Sensor and Its Applications to Pharmaceutical and Biological Analysis

The construction and performance characteristics of a coated graphite phenylephrine‐selective electrode based on incorporation of the ion‐association complex of phenylephrine‐tetraphenylborate in plasticized PVC matrix was studied. The electrode exhibited a Nernstian slope of 59.0 mV/decade to phenylephrine over a wide concentration range from 3.0×10^?6 to 5.6×10^?2 M with a low detection limit of 1.5×10^?6 M. The proposed electrode manifested advantages of fast response, long life time and, most important, good selectivities for phenylephrine relative to a wide variety of common foreign inorganic cations, anions and also organic species. The electrode was successfully applied to determine phenylephrine in adult cold tablets, phenylephrine eye‐drops and also blood serum samples. The inclusion complex formation between α‐ and β‐cyclodextrine and phenylephrine was studied potentiometrically by the proposed electrode.     

Lagrangian formulation of continuum with internal long-range interactions

Based on a new definition of nonlocal variable, this paper establishes the Lagrangian formulation for continuum with internal long-range interactions. Distinguished from the existing theories, the nonlocal term in the Lagrangian formulation automatically satisfies the zero mean condition determined by the action and reaction law. By this formulation, elastic wave in a rod with the internal long-range interactions is investigated. The dispersion of the elastic wave is predicted.     

Relaxation behaviors of enantiomorphic S-ibuprofen as revealed by dielectric and photon correlation spectroscopies

Relaxation behaviors of enantiomorphic S-ibuprofen were investigated in its amorphous state by using dielectric and photon correlation spectroscopies. The dielectric relaxation processes of the S-ibuprofen were nearly identical to those of the racemic RS-ibuprofen. The relaxation parameters and the dielectric strengths of the α-process and the D-process for the S-ibuprofen were very similar to those for the RS-ibuprofen. These results indicate that the stereochemistry of ibuprofen molecules do not have any substantial effect on molecular motions in the amorphous state of ibuprofen. The relaxation times of the main relaxation process probed by using the photon correlation spectroscopy were consistent with those of the dielectric α-process. The fragility of the S-ibuprofen was 76, which was nearly the same to that determined based on the thermal relaxation times and smaller than that of the racemic compound.