Self-assembly of phosphate fluorosurfactants in carbon dioxide

Anionic phosphodiester surfactants, possessing either two fluorinated chains (F/F) or one hydrocarbon chain and one fluorinated chain (H/F), were synthesized and evaluated for solubility and self-assembly in liquid and supercritical carbon dioxide. Several surfactants, of both F/F and H/F types and having varied counterions, were found to be capable of solubilizing water-in-CO2 (W/C), via the formation of microemulsions, expanding upon the family of phosphate fluorosurfactants already found to stabilize W/C microemulsions. Small-angle neutron scatteringwas used to directly characterize the microemulsion particles at varied temperatures, pressures, and water loadings, revealing behavior consistent with previous results on W/C microemulsions.     

New phosphate fluorosurfactants for carbon dioxide

Anionic phosphate fluorosurfactants were shown to self-assemble into water-in-carbon dioxide microemulsions. The surfactants, having either two fluorinated chains or one fluorinated chain and one hydrocarbon chain, facilitated significant water uptake in CO2. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements of surfactant/water/CO2 solutions confirmed the presence of nanometer-scale aggregates, indicative of microemulsion formation.     

3D-snapshot flash NMR imaging of the human heart

SNAPSHOT-FLASH is a recently developed, ultrafast imaging technique, based on conventional FLASH imaging. The application of this new variant to 3D imaging allows the acquisition of a 128 x 128 x 32 data set in 12.5 seconds without triggering, or for cardiac imaging with gating within 32 heartbeats. Compared to standard 3D-FLASH this is 128 times faster, because triggering is only required when the 3D phase-encoding gradient is incremented. The method depicts for the first time fast three-dimensional views of the human heart without motional artifacts. The images are spin-density weighted. Using suitable prepulses any desired T1- or T2-contrast may be achieved. The generation of 3D movies is possible without an increase of the total scan time.     

Metal-oxide surfaces

Over the past two decades the amount of effort devoted to the study of metal oxides by surface scientists has increased significantly. The general characteristics of the electronic structure of metal-oxide surfaces are now fairly well understood, although transition-metal oxides have been more thoroughly studied than have non-transition-metal oxides. The geometric arrangement of atoms on the surfaces of a variety of metal oxides has also been determined. Extensive studies have been performed of the interaction of both molecules and metal atoms with metal oxides, where point defects are found to play a dominant role. However, our understanding of the surface properties of metal oxides is still much less compete than it is for metals and semiconductors, and there are several areas where more experimental and theoretical effort needs to be concentrated.     

Chemisorbed phases of H2O on TiO2 and SrTiO3

Ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy in ultrahigh vacuum has been used to study the interaction of H₂O with argon-ion-bombarded and annealed TiO₂(110) and SrTiO₃ (100) surfaces. At low exposure, evidence is found for the presence of the OH free radical on both bombarded and annealed TiO₂. At high exposure, a spectrum of slightly perturbed adsorbed H₂O is observed, with the a₁ molecular orbital shifted 0.5–1 eV toward tighter binding. This suggests that H₂O binds to the surface of TiO₂ via its a₁, in-plane O lone-pair orbital. No evidence is found for OH on the surface of SrTiO₃. The spectrum of H₂O adsorbed on bombarded SrTiO₃ shows both the a₁ and b₂ molecular orbitals shifted 0.4 toward tighter binding, indicating a more complicated bonding to the surface. For SrTiO₃ that has been bombarded and then annealed, the spectrum of adsorbed H₂O shows no significant bonding effects.