Spray Freeze-drying – The Process of Choice for Low Water Soluble Drugs?

Most of the novel highly potent drugs, developed on the basis of modern molecular medicine, taking into account cell surface recognition techniques, show poor water solubility. A chemical modification of the drug substance enhancing the solubility often decreases the pharmacological activity. Thus, as an alternative an increase of the solubility can be obtained by the reduction of the size of the drug particles. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to obtain micro or nanosized drug particles by classical or more advanced crystallization using supercritical gases or by milling techniques. In addition, nanosized particles are often not physically stable and need to be stabilized in an appropriate matrix. Thus, it may be of interest to manufacture directly nanosized drug particles stabilized in an inert hydrophilic matrix, i.e. nanostructured and nanocomposite systems. Solid solutions and solid dispersions represent nanostructured and nanocomposite systems. In this context, the use of the vacuum-fluidized-bed technique for the spray-drying of a low water soluble drug cosolubilized with a hydrophilic excipient in a polar organic solvent is discussed. In order to avoid the use of organic solvents, a special spray-freeze-drying technique working at atmospheric pressure is presented. This process is very suitable for temperature and otherwise sensitive drugs such as pharmaproteins.     

“Slow” active control of combustion instabilities by modification of liquid fuel spray properties

This paper describes an experimental investigation of the feasibility of using “slow” active control approaches, which “instantaneously” change liquid fuel spray properties, to suppress combustion instabilities. The objective of this control approach was to break up the feedback between the combustion process heat release and combustor pressure oscillations that drive the instability by changing the characteristics of the combustion process (e.g., the characteristic combustion time). To demonstrate the feasibility of such control, this study used a proprietary fuel injector (Nanomiser^TM), which can vary its fuel spray properties, to investigate the dependence of acoustics–combustion process coupling, i.e., the driving of combustion instabilities, upon the fuel spray properties. This study showed that by changing the spray characteristics it is possible to significantly damp combustion instabilities. Furthermore, using combustion zone chemiluminescence distributions, which were obtained by Abel’s deconvolution synchronized with measured acoustic data, it has been shown that the instabilities were mostly driven midway between the combustor centerline and wall, a short distance downstream from the flame holder, where the mean axial flow velocity is approximately zero in the vortex near the flame holder. The results of this study strongly suggest that a “slow” active control system that employs controllable fuel injectors could be effectively used to prevent the onset of detrimental combustion instabilities.     

Deposition conditions in tailoring the morphology of highly porous reticular films prepared by electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique

Spongy-like reticular structure is a unique morphology fabricated by electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique. The effects of solvent, substrate temperature, precursor feeding rate, static electric field strength, and deposition time on tailoring the reticular structure were investigated. Scanning electron microscopy was used to observe the film morphology. MnO_x or LiMn₂O₄ were selected as the model materials. It is found that in addition to the conventional solvent butyl carbitol, other kinds of solvents such as ethylene glycol and propylene glycol can also be used to obtain reticular films at a suitable substrate temperature. Porous films with a low cross-linking degree pore structure can be prepared by increasing precursor feeding rate or decreasing substrate temperature. Increasing the deposition time or the electric field strength helps to obtain reticular films with more homogeneous pore size distribution. In addition, the addition of a high boiling-point solvent in mixed alcohol solvent results in the increase of proper substrate temperature. It is concluded that the fluidity of the spray droplets on the surface of a hot substrate is an important factor to form a reticular film.     

喷锚支护作为地下室外墙的应用研究

喷锚网支护技术在建筑物地基基坑开挖临时支护中的运用已经越来越广泛，而土层锚杆作为永久性支护在建筑物地下室中应用较少．拟通过广州大学广园校区体育馆工程地下室土层锚杆的施工技术，探讨土层锚杆在建筑物地下室中作为永久性地下室外墙应用的可行性．     

Correlation between Al2O3 particles and interface of Al-Al2O3 coatings by cold spray

Al-Al₂O₃ composite coatings with different Al₂O₃ particle shapes were prepared on Si and Al substrate by cold spray. The powder compositions of metal (Al) and ceramic (Al₂O₃) having different sizes and agglomerations were varied into ratios of 10:1 wt% and 1:1 wt%. Al₂O₃ particles were successfully incorporated into the soft metal matrix of Al. It was found that crater formation between the coatings and substrate, which is typical characteristic signature of cold spray could be affected by initial starting Al₂O₃ particles. In addition, when the large hard particles of fused Al₂O₃ were employed, the deep and big craters were generated at the interface between coatings and hard substrates. In the case of pure soft metal coating such as Al on hard substrate, it is very hard to get proper adhesion due to lack of crater formation. Therefore, the composite coating would have certain advantages.     

Magnetic properties of lanthanum orthoferrite fine powders prepared by different chemical routes

Fine powders of lanthanum iron oxide, LaFeO₃, have been prepared by solid state reaction as well as sol-gel synthesis and nebulized spray pyrolysis. Structures, morphologies and magnetic susceptibility measurements of these powders have been examined. The powders prepared by all the three low-temperature routes contain nearly spherical particles with an average diameter of 40 nm. These samples show a lower Neel temperature than the powder prepared by solid state reaction besides showing much lower magnetic susceptibility at low temperatures. Dedicated to Professor C N R Rao on his 70th birthday     

热喷涂技术的现状和发展

介绍了热喷涂工艺的特点，喷涂方法的种类及其技术以及热喷涂技术的应用概况，并对热喷涂技术的发展方向给予了展望。     

Photon interaction studies using 241Am γ-rays

We have carried out some photon interaction measurements using 59.54 keV γ-rays from a ²⁴¹Am source. These include γ attenuation studies as well as photoelectric absorption studies in various samples. The attenuation studies have been made using leaf and wood samples, samples like sand, sugar etc., which contain particles of varying sizes as well as pellets and aqueous solutions of rare earth compounds. In the case of the leaf and wood samples, we have used the γ-ray attenuation technique for the determination of the water content in fresh and dried samples. The variation of the attenuation coefficient with particle size has been investigated for sand and sugar samples. The attenuation studies as well as the photoelectric studies in the case of rare earth elements have been carried out on samples containing such elements whose K-absorption edge energies lie below and close to the γ-energy used. Suitable compounds of the rare earth elements have been chosen as mixture absorbers in these investigations. A narrow beam good geometry set-up was used for the attenuation measurements. A well-shielded scattering geometry was used for the photoelectric measurements. The mixture rule was invoked to extract the values of the mass attenuation coefficients for the elements from those of the corresponding compounds. The results are consistent with theoretical values derived from the XCOM package.     

Determination of impurities in highly pure platinum by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry

In this work, a cyclone spray chamber system is used in conjunction with an inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometer instead of the conventional Scott-type chamber system to reduce the lower limit of detection achieved by the instrument, and an internal standard element (Y) is introduced to eliminate the effects caused by the drift in the plasma background level. An ICP-AES method for the determination of 13 impurity elements in a highly pure platinum sample has been developed. In this method, it is not necessary either to add a platinum matrix to the calibration standard or to separate and concentrate the elements to be determined in the samples. The effect of the platinum matrix on the elements to be analyzed is corrected for by a background equivalent concentration subtraction method. The determination ranges of the method are as follows: 0.00010-0.0050% for Mg, Mn, Cu, Ag, Fe and Zn; 0.00030-0.015% for Au, Ir, Ni and Pb; 0.00050-0.025% for Rh and Al; and 0.00080-0.040% for Pd. The method is simple, rapid and accurate, and can be applied to the analysis of 99.9–99.995% pure platinum.     

合成产物PEPAMP及其副产物的电喷雾串联质谱分析

PEPAMP是应用于工业循环水中的新一代高效阻垢剂.采用电喷雾电离质谱和质谱/质谱技术分析了合成产物,注射泵直接进样,正离子方式检测,方法简便、快速.通过EI-MS技术获得了目标产物PEPAMP及主要副产物的准分子离子峰,通过ESI-MS-MS技术获得了其碎片信息,并对目标化合物及主要副产物进行了精确质量测定,确定了目标化合物及主要副产物的结构.