Photocurrent generation in multilayer self-assembly films fabricated from water-soluble poly(phenylene vinylene)

A novel, water-soluble, cationic PPV derivative poly[(2,5-bis(3-bromotrimethylammoniopropoxy)-phenylene-1,4-divinylene)-alt-1,4-(2,5-bis(2-(2-hydroxyethoxy)ethoxy))phenylene vinylene] (BH-PPV) has been synthesized by a Heck coupling reaction. Multilayered assemblies of the BH-PPV and the sodium salt of hexa(sulfobutyl)fullerenes (C(60)-HS) were fabricated successfully by an alternate deposition technique. The multilayer structures were studied by UV/Vis spectroscopy, small angle X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy. The photoinduced charge transfer property of the self-assembled multilayer film was also measured by a three-electrode cell technique. A steady and rapid cathodic 5.5 microA cm(-2) photocurrent response was measured as the irradiation of the multilayer film was switched on and off. Importantly, the response of on/off cycling is prompt and reproducible. A possible mechanism for the electron-transfer process is proposed.     

Synthesis of novel 5,6-substituted furo[2,3-d]pyrimidines via Pd-catalyzed cyclization of alkynylpyrimidinols with aryl iodides

A flexible method for the synthesis of 5,6-disubstituted furo[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives is described. The key step is a palladium-catalyzed arylative cyclization of alkynylpyrimidinols with various aryl iodides, which gave the title compounds in 36-75% yield.     

Magnetic Orbitals and Mechanisms of Exchange I. Direct Exchange

Summary. The problem of direct exchange is examined in the simplest cases (formal coupling of two electrons initially isolated and hydrogen molecule). Then we consider the general case of a solid characterized by weak overlaps between the atomic orbitals of first-nearest neighbours so that the involved electrons are quasi-localized. We recall the physical origin of spin-orbit coupling. Its influence on direct exchange allows one to revisit Hunds rules and to express phenomenological Hamiltonians describing anisotropic couplings as well as the antisymmetrical Dzialoshinski-Moriya coupling.     

Theoretical study and rate constant calculation for the reactions of SH (SD) with Cl2, Br2, and BrCl

The mechanisms of the SH (SD) radicals with Cl2 (R1), Br2 (R2), and BrCl (R3) are investigated theoretically, and the rate constants are calculated using a dual-level direct dynamics method. The optimized geometries and frequencies of the stationary points are calculated at the MP2/6-311G(d,p) and MPW1K/6-311G(d,p) levels. Higher-level energies are obtained at the approximate QCISD(T)/6-311++G(3df, 2pd) level using the MP2 geometries as well as by the multicoefficient correlation method based on QCISD (MC-QCISD) using the MPW1K geometries. Complexes with energies less than those of the reactants or products are located at the entrance or the exit channels of these reactions, which indicate that the reactions may proceed via an indirect mechanism. The enthalpies of formation for the species XSH/XSD (X = Cl and Br) are evaluated using hydrogenation working reactions method. By canonical variational transition-state theory (CVT), the rate constants of SH and SD radicals with Cl2, Br2, and BrCl are calculated over a wide temperature range of 200-2000 K at the a-QCISD(T)/6-311++G(3df, 2pd)//MP2/6-311G(d, p) level. Good agreement between the calculated and experimental rate constants is obtained in the measured temperature range. Our calculations show that for SH (SD) + BrCl reaction bromine abstraction (R3a or R3a') leading to the formation of BrSH (BrSD) + Cl in a barrierless process dominants the reaction with the branching ratios for channels 3a and 3a' of 99% at 298 K, which is quite different from the experimental result of k3a'/k3' = 54 +/- 10%. Negative activation energies are found at the higher level for the SH + Br2 and SH + BrCl (Br-abstraction) reactions; as a result, the rate constants show a slightly negative temperature dependence, which is consistent with the determination in the literature. The kinetic isotope effects for the three reactions are "inverse". The values of kH/kD are 0.88, 0.91, and 0.69 at room temperature, respectively, and they increase as the temperature increases.     

Silica nanoparticles for separation of biologically active amines by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced native fluorescence detection

This paper describes the analysis of biologically active amines by capillary electrophoresis (CE) in conjunction with laser-induced native fluorescence detection. In order to simultaneously analyze amines and acids as well as to achieve high sensitivity, 10 mM formic acid solutions (pH < 4.0) containing silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) were chosen as the background electrolytes. With increasing SiNP concentration, the migration times for seven analytes decrease as a result of increase in electroosmotic flow (EOF) and decrease in their electrophoretic mobilities against EOF. A small EOF generated at pH 3.0 reveals adsorption of SiNPs on the deactivated capillary wall. The decreases in electrophoretic mobilities with increasing SiNP concentration up to 0.3x indicate the interactions between the analytes and the SiNPs. Having a great sensitivity (the limits of detection at a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) = 3 of 0.09 nM for tryptamine (TA)), high efficiency, and excellent reproducibility (less than 2.4% of the migration times), this developed method has been applied to the analysis of urinal samples with the concentrations of 0.50 +/- 0.02 microM, 0.49 +/- 0.04 microM, and 74 +/- 2 microM for TA, 5-hydroxytryptamine, and tryptophan, respectively. The successful examples demonstrated in this study open up a possibility of using functional nanoparticles for the separation of different analytes by CE.     

Identification (GC and GC-MS) of unsaturated acetates in Elasmopalpus lignosellus and their biological activity (GC-EAD and EAG)

Two insect colonies of Elasmopalpus lignosellus were reared in our laboratory, the first being initiated from pupae obtained from a cornfield in the region of Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais and the second from a cornfield in the region of Goiania, Goiás. From the two colonies, two extracts were prepared from the pheromone glands of virgin E. lignosellus females. The extract obtained from the first colony was designated as extract 1 while the extract obtained from the second colony was designated as extract 2. Extract 1 was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with (Z)-9-hexadecenyl acetate [(Z)-9-HDA] and (Z)-11-hexadecenyl acetate [(Z)-11-HDA] being identified and confirmed by the formation of DMDS derivatives. In addition, a third acetate, which could be either (E)-8-hexadecenyl acetate [(E)-8-HDA] or (E)-9-hexadecenyl acetate [(E)-9-HDA] was detected by GC-MS. Extract 2 was analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-electroannetography (GC-EAD) revealing the presence of (Z)-11-HDA and (Z)-9-TDA. In addition, the same compounds elicited a response with the E. lignosellus male antenna obtained from the second insect colony. Electroantennography (EAG) screening with the male E. lignosellus antenna (obtained from the second insect colony) was conducted with the 23 possible tetradecenyl acetates (TDA) and 22 hexadecenyl acetates (HDA) as standards. Out of the 23 TDA isomers evaluated, only (Z)-9-TDA elicited a response and out of the 22 HDA [(Z) and (E) isomers gamma2 to delta13] evaluated only (Z)-11-HDA elicited a response. The acetate compositions of two extracts obtained from insects originating from the two states (Minas Gerais and Goiás) of Brazil were different from one another as well as from that obtained from insects in Tifton, GA, USA. The bioactivity data (GC-EAD) of the extract 2 differed from those reported for the Tifton, GA, USA population. These data suggest polymorphism in relation to the insect populations found in Brazil and in the USA. The possibility of the existence of an E. lignosellus sub-species cannot be ruled out.     

Oxidative addition of the ethane C-C bond to Pd. An ab initio benchmark and DFT validation study

We have computed a state-of-the-art benchmark potential energy surface (PES) for the archetypal oxidative addition of the ethane C-C bond to the palladium atom and have used this to evaluate the performance of 24 popular density functionals, covering LDA, GGA, meta-GGA, and hybrid density functionals, for describing this reaction. The ab initio benchmark is obtained by exploring the PES using a hierarchical series of ab initio methods [HF, MP2, CCSD, CCSD(T)] in combination with a hierarchical series of five Gaussian-type basis sets, up to g polarization. Relativistic effects are taken into account either through a relativistic effective core potential for palladium or through a full four-component all-electron approach. Our best estimate of kinetic and thermodynamic parameters is -10.8 (-11.3) kcal/mol for the formation of the reactant complex, 19.4 (17.1) kcal/mol for the activation energy relative to the separate reactants, and -4.5 (-6.8) kcal/mol for the reaction energy (zero-point vibrational energy-corrected values in parentheses). Our work highlights the importance of sufficient higher angular momentum polarization functions for correctly describing metal-d-electron correlation. Best overall agreement with our ab initio benchmark is obtained by functionals from all three categories, GGA, meta-GGA, and hybrid DFT, with mean absolute errors of 1.5 to 2.5 kcal/mol and errors in activation energies ranging from -0.2 to -3.2 kcal/mol. Interestingly, the well-known BLYP functional compares very reasonably with a slight underestimation of the overall barrier by -0.9 kcal/mol. For comparison, with B3LYP we arrive at an overestimation of the overall barrier by 5.8 kcal/mol. On the other hand, B3LYP performs excellently for the central barrier (i.e., relative to the reactant complex) which it underestimates by only -0.1 kcal/mol.     

Supramolecular approaches to generate libraries of chelating bidentate ligands for homogeneous catalysis

The process of catalyst discovery and development relying on combinatorial methods has suffered so far from the difficult access to structurally diverse and large libraries of ligands, in particular the structurally more complex class of bidentate ligands. A completely new approach to streamline the difficult ligand synthesis process is to use structurally less complex monodentate ligands that self-assemble in the coordination sphere of a metal center through noncovalent attractive ligand-ligand interactions to generate bidentate, chelating ligands. When complementary attractive ligand-ligand interactions are employed, it is even possible to generate libraries of defined chelate-ligand catalysts by simply mixing two different monomeric ligands. This Minireview summarizes the first approaches and results in this new field of combinatorial homogeneous catalysis.     

Migration behavior and enantioseparation of hydrobenzoin and structurally related compounds in capillary zone electrophoresis with a dual cyclodextrin system consisting of heptakis-(2,3-dihydroxy-6-O-sulfo)-beta-cyclodextrin and beta-cyclodextrin

Migration behavior and enantioseparation of racemic hydrobenzoin and structurally related compounds, including benzoin and benzoin methyl ether, in CZE with a dual CD system consisting of heptakis-(2,3-dihydroxy-6-O-sulfo)-beta-CD (SI-S-beta-CD) and beta-CD as chiral selectors in the presence and absence of borate complexation at pH 9.0 were investigated. The results indicate that enantioseparation of hydrobenzoin is mainly governed by CD complexation of hydrobenzoin-borate complexes with SI-S-beta-CD when SI-S-beta-CD concentration is relatively high. Whereas CD complexation of hydrobenzoin-borate complexes with beta-CD plays a significant role in enantioseparation when SI-S-beta-CD concentration is comparatively low. The (S,S)-enantiomer of the hydrobenzoin-borate complex was found to interact more strongly than the corresponding (R,R)-enantiomer with both SI-S-beta-CD and beta-CD. These two types of CD show the same chiral recognition pattern, but they exhibit opposite effects on the mobility of the enantiomers of hydrobenzoin-borate complexes. Enantiomer migration reversal of hydrobenzoin occurred in the presence of borate complexation when varying the concentration of beta-CD, while keeping SI-S-beta-CD at a relatively low concentration. Binding constants of the enantiomers of benzoin-related compounds to beta-CD and those of hydrobenzoin-borate complexes to SI-beta-CD were evaluated; the mobility contributions of all complex species to the effective mobility of the enantiomers of hydrobenzoin as a function of beta-CD concentration in a borate buffer were analyzed. In addition, comparative studies on the enantioseparation of benzoin-related compounds with SI-S-beta-CD and with randomly sulfate-substituted beta-CD were made.     

Performance of hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation in protein separation

Since hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation (HF FIFFF) utilizes a cylindrical channel made of a hollow-fiber membrane, which is inexpensive and simple in channel assembly and thus disposable, interests are increasing as a potential separation device in cells, proteins, and macromolecules. In this study, performance of HF FIFFF of proteins is described by examining the influence of flow rate conditions and length of fiber (polyacrylonitrile or PAN in this work) on sample recovery as well as experimental plate heights. The interfiber reproducibility in terms of separation time and recovery was also studied. Experiments showed that sample recovery was consistent regardless of the length of fiber when the effective field strength (equivalent to the mean flow velocity at the fiber wall) and the channel void time were adjusted to be equivalent for channels of various fiber lengths. This supported that the majority of sample loss in HF FIFFF separation of apoferritin and their aggregates may occur before the migration process. It is finally demonstrated that HF FIFFF can be applied for characterizing the reduction in Stokes' size of low density lipoproteins from blood plasma samples obtained from patients having coronary artery disease and from healthy donors.