Application of TiO2-nanotubes/PbO2 as an anode for the electrochemical elimination of Acid Red 1 dye

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - In this study, galvanostatic electrolysis, through the use of the platinum supported on Ti (Ti/Pt) and Ti/TiO2-nanotubes/PbO2 anodes, was conducted in an...     

Synthesis of lupeol derivatives and their antileishmanial and antitrypanosomal activities

The natural product lupeol 1 was isolated from aerial parts of Vernonia scorpioides with satisfactory yield, which made it viable to be used as starting material in semisynthetic approach. Ten lupeol derivatives 2–11 were prepared by classical procedures. Including, five new esters derivatives 7–11, which were obtained by structural modifications in the isopropylidene fragment. All semisynthetic compounds and lupeol 1–11 were confirmed by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and HRMS. Their antiprotozoal activity was evaluated in vitro against L. amazonensis and T. cruzi. Derivative 6 showed the best antitrypanosomal activity (IC₅₀ = 12.48 μg/mL) and the lowest cytotoxic derivative (CC₅₀ = 161.50 μg/mL). The mechanism of action of the most active derivatives (4, 6 and 11) is not dependent from the enzyme trypanothione reductase.     

Organotellurides as a source of organometallics: application in the synthesis of (+/−)-frontalin

A masked lithium homoenolate, generated by tellurium/lithium exchange, was reacted with epoxides. The lithium compound was also converted into other organometallics such as Grignard, and cuprates and the reactivity of those organometallics with epoxides was evaluated. The same building block was employed in the synthesis of (+/−)-frontalin.     

Spectrofluorimetric Method for the Determination of Aluminum with Alizarin Red PS

 A simple and direct spectrofluorimetric method has been developed for the determination of aluminum using alizarin red PS (1,2,4-trihydroxy 9,10-anthraquinone-3-sulfonic acid). The method is based on the strong fluorescence (480/564 nm) of Al³⁺ and alizarin red. Experimental parameters such as pH, concentration of the ligand, ionic strength of the solution, reaction time and temperature were optimized in order to maximize the analytical signal. Interferences of several ions (anions and cations) were studied and evaluated. The linear range of the method extends from 3 to 100 μg L⁻¹. Limit of detection (3s_b) was 0.9 μg L⁻¹. The method was tested with a silicate certified reference material. Interferences were eliminated by a liquid extraction with cupferron. Author for correspondence. E-mail: aucelior@rdc.puc-rio.br Received September 10, 2002; accepted January 15, 2003 Published online May 5, 2003     

A mixed‐FEM formulation for nonlinear incompressible elasticity in the plane

This article deals with an expanded mixed finite element formulation, based on the Hu‐Washizu principle, for a nonlinear incompressible material in the plane. We follow our related previous works and introduce both the stress and the strain tensors as further unknowns, which yields a two‐fold saddle point operator equation as the corresponding variational formulation. A slight generalization of the classical Babu?ka‐Brezzi's theory is applied to prove unique solvability of the continuous and discrete formulations, and to derive the corresponding a priori error analysis. An extension of the well‐known PEERS space is used to define an stable associated Galerkin scheme. Finally, we provide an a posteriori error analysis based on the classical Bank‐Weiser approach. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 105–128, 2002     

Viscoelastic properties of nanostructured natural rubber/polystyrene interpenetrating polymer networks

The effects of the blend ratio and initiating system on the viscoelastic properties of nanostructured natural rubber/polystyrene‐based interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) were investigated in the temperature range of ?80 to 150 °C. The studies were carried out at different frequencies (100, 50, 10, 1, and 0.1 Hz), and their effects on the damping and storage and loss moduli were analyzed. In all cases, tan δ and the storage and loss moduli showed two distinct transitions corresponding to natural rubber and polystyrene phases, which indicated that the system was not miscible on the molecular level. However, a slight inward shift was observed in the IPNs, with respect to the glass‐transition temperatures (T_g's) of the virgin polymers, showing a certain degree of miscibility or intermixing between the two phases. When the frequency increased from 0.1 to 100 Hz, the T_g values showed a positive shift in all cases. In a comparison of the three initiating systems (dicumyl peroxide, benzoyl peroxide, and azobisisobutyronitrile), the dicumyl peroxide system showed the highest modulus. The morphology of the IPNs was analyzed with transmission electron microscopy. The micrographs indicated that the system was nanostructured. An attempt was made to relate the viscoelastic behavior to the morphology of the IPNs. Various models, such as the series, parallel, Halpin–Tsai, Kerner, Coran, Takayanagi, and Davies models, were used to model the viscoelastic data. The area under the linear loss modulus curve was larger than that obtained by group contribution analysis; this showed that the damping was influenced by the phase morphology, dual‐phase continuity, and crosslinking of the phases. Finally, the homogeneity of the system was further evaluated with Cole–Cole analysis. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 1680–1696, 2003     

A Genetic Algorithm for Solving a Capacitated p-Median Problem

Facility-location problems have several applications, such as telecommunications, industrial transportation and distribution. One of the most well-known facility-location problems is the p-median problem. This work addresses an application of the capacitated p-median problem to a real-world problem. We propose a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the capacitated p-median problem. The proposed GA uses not only conventional genetic operators, but also a new heuristic “hypermutation” operator suggested in this work. The proposed GA is compared with a tabu search algorithm.