Determination of Chromium (VI) in Airborne Particulate Matter by Electrothermal Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) is a well-established carcinogen associated with lung, nasal, and sinus cancer. Cr(VI) threshold limit values in workroom air have been recently lowered. Consequently, the currently available analytical methods are insufficiently sensitive or high cost. In this paper, a simple, cost-effective, sensitive, and reproducible method using solid-phase extraction with electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry for determination of hexavalent chromium in airborne samples is reported. The method validation included selectivity, linearity, accuracy, and precision. Interferences from other ions likely to be present in airborne samples, including trivalent chromium, were tested and selectivity was demonstrated. The detection and quantification limits were, respectively, as low as 0.1 and 0.4?µg?L^?1. The linearity ranged from 0.5 to 50.0?µg?L^?1, with a regression coefficients exceeding 0.998. The extraction recovery exceeded 98%. The developed method was successfully compared with a reference spectrophotometric method. The performances achieved were similar to ion chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography approaches. The novel method was tested on airborne samples collected from the workplace. The method’s performance suggests that it may be an alternative to high-cost techniques for monitoring occupational exposure to hexavalent chromium.     

Enhanced UV photosensing properties of ZnO nanowires prepared by electrodeposition and atomic layer deposition

A new process enabling the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) and Al-doped ZnO nanowires (NWs) for photosensing applications is reported. By combining atomic layer deposition (ALD) for the seed layer preparation and electrodeposition for the NW growth, high-quality ZnO nanomaterials were prepared and tested as ultraviolet (UV) sensors. The obtained NWs are grown as arrays perpendicular to the substrate surface and present diameters between 70 and 130 nm depending on the Al doping, as seen from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies. Their hexagonal microstructure has been determined using X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. An excellent performance in UV sensing has been observed for the ZnO NWs with low Al doping, and a maximal photoresponse current of 11.1 mA has been measured. In addition, initial studies on the stability have shown that the NW photoresponse currents are stable, even after ten UV on/off cycles.     

Influence of disorder on microcavity polariton linewidths

Polariton linewidths have been measured in a series of microcavities with different excitonic and cavity inhomogeneous broadening in the weak-disorder regime. We show experimentally that the behaviour of the polariton linewidths as a function of the detuning depends on the asymmetric line shape of an inhomogeneously broadened exciton line and particularly the disorder effect can be modulated and cancelled around resonance. When the disorder contribution is minimal, the behaviour of the cavity polariton linewidths tends to one of the homogeneous broadening system.     

Solvent free synthesis of 1,3-diaryl-2-propenones catalyzed by commercial acid-clays under ultrasound irradiation

This paper presents a novel solvent free method of synthesis of trans-chalcones. The method was based on ultrasound irradiation of the reagents (aryl methyl ketones and aryl aldehydes) in presence of commercial acid-montmorillonites as catalysts. The trans-chalcones were synthesized in high yields (85–95%) and excellent selectivity in a short reaction time.     

Study of n type porous GaAs by photoluminescence spectroscopy: Effect of the etching time on the deep levels

Photoluminescence (PL) analysis is used to study porous layers elaborated by electrochemical etching of n⁺ Si-doped GaAs substrate with different etching times. Temperature and power dependence photoluminescence (PL) studies were achieved to characterize the effect of the etching time on the deep levels of the n⁺ Si-doped GaAs. The energy emission at about 1.46 eV is attributed to the band-to-band (B-B) (e-h) recombination of a hole gas with electrons in the conduction band. The emission band is composed of four deep levels due to the complex of (V_AsSi_GaV_Ga), a complex of a (Ga vacancy - donor - As vacancy), a (Si_Ga-V_Ga³⁻) defect or Si clustering, and a (gallium antisite double acceptor-effective mass donor pair complex) and which peaked, respectively, at about (0.94, 1, 1.14, and 1.32 eV). The PL intensity behavior as function of the temperature is investigated, and the experimental results are fitted with a rate equation model with double thermal activation energies.     

Enhancing techniques for learning decision trees from imbalanced data

Advances in Data Analysis and Classification - Several machine learning techniques assume that the number of objects in considered classes is approximately similar. Nevertheless, in real-world...     

Michael addition of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds catalyzed by iron oxide nanoparticles

Several iron oxides nanoparticles (Fe₂O₃@Fe₂O₃, Fe°@Fe₂O₃, GO@Fe₂O₃ and calcinated Fe₂O₃) have been assessed as catalysts in the 1,4-addition of a cyclic β-ketoester onto methyl vinyl ketone under neat conditions. It appeared that calcinated Fe₂O₃NP are efficient catalysts at 1?mol% loading for the Michael addition of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds onto various enones.     

Aqueous behaviour of cationic surfactants containing a cleavable group

The aggregation behaviour of two novel cationic RAFT agents (transfer surfactants); N,N-dimethyl-N-(4-(((phenylcarbonothioyl)thio)methyl)benzyl)ethanammonium bromide (PCDBAB) and N-(4-((((dodecylthio)-carbonothioyl)thio)methyl)benzyl)-N,N-dimethylethanammonium bromide (DCTBAB) in diluted solutions have been investigated by surface tension, conductimetry and microcalorimetry measurements. The thermodynamic parameters i.e. the critical micelle concentration (cmc), the degree of micelle ionization (alpha), the head group surface area (a 0), Delta H mic, Delta G mic and T Delta S mic are reported at 303 K. The thermodynamic parameters have been compared to those of the conventional surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) in order to specify structural relationships. The obtained results have been discussed considering the hydrophobic behaviour of the S-C=S- linkage and the specific interactions that arise from the introduction of the benzene ring into the hydrophobic part.