Mesoporous aluminosilicate nanocage-catalyzed three-component coupling reaction: an expedient synthesis of α-aminophosphonates

Here we demonstrate for the first time the synthesis of α-aminophosphonates through the three-component coupling reaction of aldehydes, amines, and diethyl phosphite by using highly acidic 3D mesoporous aluminosilicate nanocage catalyst, which gave excellent yield with a high selectivity in a short reaction time due to its high acidity, 3D pores, and a huge space in the nanocages.     

Reliability of disturbance rejection control based on the geometrical disturbance decoupling

In this note, a reliable disturbance decoupled control system based on the geometrical technique is proposed. For this purpose, first, the conditions for nominal disturbance detection and rejection is introduced by using invariant subspaces. Then, the fragility issue of the controller/observer is addressed with appropriate H_∞ constraints in the form of some linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). In contrast to conventional pole placement method suitable for systems by neglecting sources of uncertainty, in the presented method, the disturbance rejection problem reduces to a quadratic stability problem. It is observed that the proposed method has a better attenuation performance than classical observer-based non-fragile controller. © 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Gas-chromatographic fatty-acid fingerprints and partial least squares modeling as a basis for the simultaneous determination of edible oil mixtures

Partial least squares modeling and gas-chromatographic fatty-acid fingerprints are reported as a method for the simultaneous determination of cottonseed, olive, soybean and sunflower edible oil mixtures. In this work, two sets of three- and four-component combinations of oils were prepared, hydrolyzed and the obtained free fatty acids analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) without any further derivatization. The normalized percentages of the myristic (14:0), palmitic (16:0), palmitoleic (16:1), stearic (18:0), oleic (18:1), linoleic (18:2) and linolenic (18:3) acids were chromatographically measured in samples and used for constructing calibration matrix. The cross-validation method was used to select the number of factors and the proposed methods were validated by using two sets of synthetic oil mixture samples. The relative standard error for each oil in mixture samples was less than 10%. This approach allows determining possible adulteration in each of the four edible oils.     

New porphyrins: synthesis,characterization, and computational studies

Molecular Diversity - New trans-A2B2-porphyrins substituted at phenyl positions were synthesized from 4-methylphthalic acid as a starting material through sequential multistep reactions. These...     

A metal–organic framework/polymer derived catalyst containing single-atom nickel species for electrocatalysis

While metal–organic frameworks (MOF) alone offer a wide range of structural tunability, the formation of composites, through the introduction of other non-native species, like polymers, can further broaden their structure/property spectrum. Here we demonstrate that a polymer, placed inside the MOF pores, can support the collapsible MOF and help inhibit the aggregation of nickel during pyrolysis; this leads to the formation of single atom nickel species in the resulting nitrogen doped carbons, and dramatically improves the activity, CO selectivity and stability in electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction. Considering the vast number of multifarious MOFs and polymers to choose from, we believe this strategy can open up more possibilities in the field of catalyst design, and further contribute to the already expansive set of MOF applications.

A metal–organic framework/polymer derived catalyst containing single-atom nickel species shows good performance for electroreduction of CO₂ to CO.     

Inkjet-Printed TiO2/Fullerene Composite Films for Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Perovskite solar cells have garnered and held international research interest, due to ever-climbing power conversion efficiency values, now >25 %. Some high efficiency configurations utilize a compact TiO₂ layer underneath a mesoporous TiO₂ layer, both of which require high temperature annealing steps that could hinder perovskite commercialization. To address the high thermal budget, we chose to use inkjet-printing to combine the two layers into a single TiO₂ film, which incorporates both nanoparticle and molecular precursor as well as organic fullerene additives. We printed the ink on fluorine-doped tin oxide, and after annealing at various temperatures, we found that 400 °C was the optimum annealing temperature for the inkjet-printed electron transport layers, which is significantly lower than the 500 °C required to anneal typical mesoporous TiO₂ films.