Applications of chalcogenide glass optical fibers

Chalcogenide-glass fibers based on sulfide, selenide, telluride and their rare-earth-doped compositions are being actively pursued worldwide. Great strides have been made in reducing optical losses using improved chemical purification techniques, but further improvements are needed in both purification and fiberization technology to attain the theoretical optical losses. Despite this, chalcogenide-glass fibers are enabling numerous applications that include laser power delivery, chemical sensing, and imaging, scanning near field microscopy/spectroscopy, IR sources/lasers, amplifiers and optical switches.     

Specific and non-specific interactions of hydropseudohalic acids with water and organic solvents

Partition coefficients P of the HNCS, HNCO and HN₃ hydropseudohalic acids between a number of organic solvents and water were determined. It has been found that log P increases with pKa of the acid and with the basicity of the solvent, but the effect of pKa on P is the smaller the more basic is the solvent. The relationships have been explained in terms of hydrogen bond formation between undissociated acid and solvent molecules. H-bonding between the pseudohalic acids and organic solvents has been confirmed by IR spectra on the example of HN₃ in benzene. Association constants for H-bonding between the three acids and water, benzene, dibutyl ether and tri-n-butyl phosphate were determined from partition data. It has been found that H-bonding increases with the strength of the acid, whereas the contribution to partition from non-specific interactions with water and organic solvents depends on the molecular surface area of the acid molecule.     

Rapid biomass analysis

New, rapid, and inexpensive methods that monitor the chemical composition of corn stover and corn stover-derived samples are a key element to enabling the commercialization of processes that convert stover to fuels and chemicals. These new techniques combine near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and projection to latent structures (PLS) multivariate analysis to allow the compositional analysis of hundreds of samples in 1 d at a cost of about $10 each. The new NIR/PLS rapid analysis methods can also be used to support a variety of research projects that would have been too costly to pursue by traditional methods.     

Ethanol/water pulp enzymatic pretreatment: Chemical and FTIR-PCA analyses

Pulps obtained from ethanol/water cooking of sugarcane bagasse were treated at different times using xylanase enzyme obtained from Thermomyces lanuginosus IOC-4145 or commercially (Cartazyme HS, Sandoz Products Ltd.). The enzyme dosage was 18 IU per g of dry pulp and the time varied from 4 h to 12 h. When xylanase from T. lanuginosus was used, the kappa number and viscosity improved independently of the processing time used (4 h, 8 h, and 12 h). After chemical evaluation, the obtained pulps were classified using Fourier Transformed Infra-Red Spectroscopy and Principal Component Analysis. The results showed that the first three principal components explained more than 90 % of the total variance of the pulp spectra.     

Infrared Evidence for Hoffman Reaction During Calcination of Surfactant-Templated Silica Films and Analysis of the Resulting Surface Sites

Fourier Transform Infrared transmission spectroscopy is used to characterize surfactant-templated silica films on glass. The calcination process is followed in situ and evidence for the removal of the surfactant along the Hoffman reaction is given. Once calcined, the surface of the pores of the mesoporous films is proven by deuteration experiment to be hydroxylated. Bands are attributed to isolated and hydrogen-bonded silanols. Silylation reaction with hexamethyldisilazane only occurs with isolated silanol groups.     

Occurrence and distribution of metals and porphyrins in Nigerian coal minerals

The metal contents of Nigerian coal minerals were analyzed using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Calcium, Na, and Fe occurred as the major elements with concentrations ranging from 9 782 μg/g for Ca to 432 μg/g for Na whereas K, Mg, Mn, Ni, Cr, Zn, Pb, and Cu, which occurred at trace levels ranged from 673.73 μg/g for Mg to 2.97 μg/g for Mn. The results of the quantitative analysis of porphyrins extracted from the coal minerals showed that Onyeama coal has the highest amount of porphyrins (ca～0.96 μg/g) while Okpara has the lowest (ca～0.30 μg/g). The porphyrins were qualitatively characterized by a combination of thin layer chromatography (TLC), infrared, and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometers. The results of the mid infrared analysis (MIR) showed the presence of absorption bands at 3 440 cm～1～3 450 cm-1 and 1 640 cm-1～1 680 cm-1 , which are owing to the stretching vibrations of N - H and C = C of aromatics, with C- H out of plane (oop) bending vibrations at wavenumbers less than 900 cm-1, all of which are characteristic absorptions of porphyrin free base. The ultraviolet-visible data showed prominent peaks at ～400 nm(Soret band) and at wavelength ranges of 535 nm～550 nm(β-band) and 565 nm～ 600 nm (α-band) for the coal porphyrins analyzed. The geochemical significance of the metals and porphyrins in coal minerals are discussed.     

中药配方颗粒红外光谱法的快速鉴别

采用红外光谱法对中药配方颗粒及其辅料进行了鉴别研究。结果表明：不同生产厂商的配方颗粒中所添加的辅料类型及用量有较大差别；不同种的配方颗粒在辅料含量较低的情况下有较明显的指纹性，而辅料含量较高时，采用差谱技术可以提高谱图的指纹性，达到中药配方颗粒--鉴别的目的。该法简便、快速、可靠，是中药配方颗粒宏观质控的一个强有力的手段。     

Classification of cultivation area of ginseng by near infrared spectroscopy and ICP-AES

A rapid and nondestructive near infrared (NIR) method using soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA) for the classification of cultivation area (Korea and China) was evaluated and confirmed. Raw, first, and second derivative NIR spectra were compared to develop a robust classification rule. The chemical properties of ginseng samples were also investigated to find out the differences between Korean samples and Chinese samples. These differences make NIR spectroscopic method viable. The average value of each Korean and Chinese ginseng sample for crude fiber, crude protein, starch, and 10 inorganic constituents were measured and compared with F-test and t-test. The inorganic constituents were also measured by induced coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). It could be found that the amount of starch and ten inorganic elements for example Na, Mg, P, K, Ca, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and Zn in ginseng samples are considerably different based on cultivation area. SIMCA has been applied to the inorganic data to investigate the possibility of ICP-AES as classification tool. However, it was observed that the result was not equal to than NIR spectra data. The overall results showed the availability of NIR method using SIMCA would be adequate for classification of cultivation of ginseng, since NIR spectra includes useful and various information on chemical properties in spite of broad and overlapped bands.     

Vibrational spectra and structure of “staircase” carbonyl π-complexes of transition metals

FTIR spectra have been studied for staircase cyclopentadienyl complexes containing two or three metal carbonyl fragments bound by the metal-carbon bond Cp(CO)₂Fe-CpmMn(CO)₃ (1), Cp(CO)₂Fe-CpmFe(CO)₂CH₂Ph (2), Cp(CO)₂Fe-Cpm(CO)₂Fe-CpmMn(CO)₃ (3), Cp(CO)₂Mo-Cpm(CO)₂Fe-CpmMn(CO)₃ (4), Cp(CO)₃W-Cpm(CO)₂Fe-CpmMn(CO)₃ (5), Cp(CO)₂Fe-Cpm(CO)₂Fe-BmCr(CO)₃ (6), Cr(CO)₃Bm-CpmFe(CO)₂CH₂Ph (7), where Cp = ₅-C₅H₅, Cpm = ¹⁵-C₅H₄, Bm = ¹⁶-C₆H₅. Temperature-dependent FTIR spectra were measured inn-pentane solutions over a wide temperature range and in the low-temperature solid matrices of argon and nitrogen. Rotamers, formed due to rotation about the metal-carbon -bond, were found in solutions and matrices. A molecular mechanics calculation of1 proved the possibility of such rotation.Translated fromIzyestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 11, pp. 1952–1956, November, 1994.The authors are grateful to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project code No 93-03-18592) and to the International Science Foundation (project code No MEQ000).     

Synthesis of Gels in the System Na2O-ZrO2-SiO2

Gels have been synthesized in the SiO₂-Na₂O-ZrO₂ system and calcined at various temperatures up to 700°C. They have been studied by infrared absorption spectroscopy. The position of the asymmetric stretching frequency of the SiO₄ unit is used as a tracer of the homogeneity. It is shown that sodium increases the solubility of zirconium in the silica matrix as already observed in fused glasses.