pH tunable self-assembly of chicoric acid and their biocompatibility studies

We report for the first time, the pH tunable self-assembly of chicoric acid, an HIV-I integrase inhibitor, which displayed a remarkable tendency to self-assemble at room temperature into varying nano- and microstructures. Furthermore, those assemblies were then functionalised with gold (Au) nanoparticles. We then investigated the biocompatibility of the materials by conducting in vitro cell attachment and cytotoxicity studies using normal rat kidney cells. The studies revealed that the biomaterials were non-toxic and biocompatible, and showed considerable adhesion to the cells. These results suggest that the assemblies could potentially be used for a variety of applications, such as carriers for targeted drug delivery as well as optoelectronics and sensors. Furthermore, the formation of highly organised nano- and microstructures of medicinally significant phytohormones such as chicoric acid is of particular interest as it might help in further understanding the supramolecular assembly mechanism of higher organised biological structures for the development of building blocks for various device fabrications.     

Chlorine‐Enhanced Surface Mobility of Au(100)

Motivated by experimental studies of two‐dimensional Ostwald ripening on Au(100) electrodes in chlorine‐containing electrolytes, we have studied diffusion processes using density functional theory. We find that chlorine has a propensity to temporary form AuCl complexes, which diffuse significantly faster than gold adatoms. With and without chlorine, the lowest activation energy is found for the exchange mechanism. Chlorine furthermore reduces the activation energy for the detachment from kink sites. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations were performed on the basis of extensive density functional theory calculations. The island‐decay rate obtained from these Monte Carlo simulations, as well as the decay rate obtained from the theoretical activation energies and frequency factors when inserted into analytical solutions for Ostwald ripening, are in agreement with experimental island‐decay rates in chlorine‐containing electrolytes.     

十二烷基二甲基苄基氯化铵从碱性氰化液中固相萃取金的研究

建立了一种用十二烷基二甲基苄基氯化铵(BDMDAC)从碱性氰化液中固相萃取金的新方法：在碱性介质中,十二烷基二甲基苄基氯化铵溶液(BDMDAC)与Au(CN)2-络阴离子生成离子缔合物,该离子缔合物可被反相键合硅胶固相萃取柱萃取、富集,用乙醇洗脱,反相键合硅胶固相萃取柱可重复使用。该方法用于从碱性氰化液中固相萃取痕量金,萃取回收率可超过98%。     

4-十二烷氧基苄胺在纳米金微粒合成中的应用

以新型表面活性剂4-十二烷氧基苄胺(C12OBA)构成的C12OBA/正丁醇/正庚烷/丙醛/HAuCl4(aq)反相微乳液作为微反应器,利用微波辐射加热-丙醛还原法制备了C12OBA包覆金纳米微粒;利用透射电镜、傅立叶变换红外光谱仪及X射线衍射仪分析了产物的微观形貌、化学键合特征、晶体结构;并测定了其紫外-可见吸收光谱.结果显示,表面活性剂C12OBA既可参与形成稳定的反相微乳液,又可作为金纳米微粒的良好保护剂.反相微乳液液滴的微小水核以及C12OBA/金的物质的量之比对纳米金微粒的尺寸和形貌起到良好的控制作用.     

Simultaneous Anodic Stripping Voltammetric Determination of Pb and Cd,Using a Vibrating Gold Microwire Electrode,Assisted by Chemometric Techniques

Simultaneous anodic stripping voltammetric determination of Pb and Cd is restricted on gold electrodes as a result of the overlapping of these two peaks. This work describes the quantitative determination of a binary mixture system of Pb and Cd, at low concentration levels (up to 15.0 and 10.0 µg L^?1 for Pb and Cd, respectively) by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV; deposition time of 30 s), using a green electrode (vibrating gold microwire electrode) without purging in a chloride medium (0.5 M NaCl) under moderate acidic conditions (HCl 1.0 mM), assisted by chemometric tools. The application of multivariate curve resolution alternating least squares (MCR‐ALS) for the resolution and quantification of both metals is shown. The optimized MCR‐ALS models showed good prediction ability with concentration prediction errors of 12.4 and 11.4 % for Pb and Cd, respectively. The quantitative results obtained by MCR‐ALS were compared to those obtained with partial least squares (PLS) and classical least squares (CLS) regression methods. For both metals, PLS and MCR‐ALS results are comparable and superior to CLS. For Cd, as a result of the peak shift problem, the application of CLS was unsuitable. MCR‐ALS provides additional advantage compared to PLS since it estimates the pure response of the analytes signal. Finally, the built up multivariate calibration models, based either in MCR‐ALS or PLS regression, allowed to quantify concentrations of Pb and Cd in surface river water samples, with satisfactory results.     

Magnetic separation of heavy metal ions and evaluation based on surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy: Copper(II) ions as a case study

A new approach was developed for the magnetic separation of copper(II) ions with easy operation and high efficiency. p‐Mercaptobenzoic acid served as the modified tag of Fe₂O₃@Au nanoparticles both for the chelation ligand and Raman reporter. Through the chelation between the copper(II) ions and carboxyl groups on the gold shell, the Fe₂O₃@Au nanoparticles aggregated to form networks that were enriched and separated from the solution by a magnet. A significant decrease in the concentration of copper(II) ions in the supernatant solution was observed. An extremely sensitive method based on surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy was employed to detect free copper(II) ions that remained after the magnetic separation, and thus to evaluate the separation efficiency. The results indicated the intensities of the surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy bands from p‐mercaptobenzoic acid were dependent on the concentration of copper(II) ions, and the concentration was decreased by several orders of magnitude after the magnetic separation. The present protocol effectively decreased the total amount of heavy metal ions in the solution. This approach opens a potential application in the magnetic separation and highly sensitive detection of heavy metal ions.     

Surface‐Passivated SBA‐15‐Supported Gold Nanoparticles: Highly Improved Catalytic Activity and Selectivity toward Hydrophobic Substrates

Silanol groups on a silica surface affect the activity of immobilized catalysts because they can influence the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity, matter transfer, or even transition state in a catalytic reaction. Previously, these silanol groups have usually been passivated by using surface‐passivation reagents, such as alkoxysilanes, bis‐silylamine reagents, chlorosilanes, etc., and surface passivation has typically been found in mesoporous‐silicas‐supported molecular catalysts and heteroatomic catalysts. However, this property has rarely been reported in mesoporous‐silicas‐supported metal‐nanoparticle catalysts. Herein, we prepared an almost‐superhydrophobic SBA‐15‐supported gold‐nanoparticle catalyst by using surface passivation, in which the catalytic activity increased more than 14 times for the reduction of nitrobenzene compared with non‐passivated SBA‐15. In addition, this catalyst can selectively catalyze hydrophobic molecules under our experimental conditions, owing to its high (almost superhydrophobic) hydrophobic properties.