2,598 research outputs found

    Oxide formation at the surface of late 4d transition metals: Insights from first-principles atomistic thermodynamics

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    Using density-functional theory we assess the stability of bulk and surface oxides of the late 4d transition metals in a ``constrained equilibrium'' with a gas phase formed of O2 and CO. While the stability range of the most stable bulk oxide extends for ruthenium well into gas phase conditions representative of technological CO oxidation catalysis, this is progressively less so for the 4d metals to its right in the periodic system. Surface oxides could nevertheless still be stable under such conditions. These thermodynamic considerations are discussed in the light of recent experiments, emphasizing the role of (surface) oxides as the active phase of model catalysts formed from these metals.Comment: 7 pages including 3 figures, Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

    Trajectories and Drivers of Genome Evolution in Surface-Associated Marine Phaeobacter

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    The extent of genome divergence and the evolutionary events leading to speciation of marine bacteria have mostly been studied for (locally) abundant, free-living groups. The genus Phaeobacter is found on different marine surfaces, seems to occupy geographically disjunct habitats, and is involved in different biotic interactions, and was therefore targeted in the present study. The analysis of the chromosomes of 32 closely related but geographically spread Phaeobacter strains revealed an exceptionally large, highly syntenic core genome. The flexible gene pool is constantly but slightly expanding across all Phaeobacter lineages. The horizontally transferred genes mostly originated from bacteria of the Roseobacter group and horizontal transfer most likely was mediated by gene transfer agents. No evidence for geographic isolation and habitat specificity of the different phylogenomic Phaeobacter clades was detected based on the sources of isolation. In contrast, the functional gene repertoire and physiological traits of different phylogenomic Phaeobacter clades were sufficiently distinct to suggest an adaptation to an associated lifestyle with algae, to additional nutrient sources, or toxic heavy metals. Our study reveals that the evolutionary trajectories of surface-associated marine bacteria can differ significantly from free-living marine bacteria or marine generalists

    Characterization of electrochemical systems using potential step voltammetry. Part II: Modeling of reversible systems

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    [EN] This study was carried out to compare the results obtained using potential step voltammetry and linear sweep voltammetry with a rotating gold disc electrode (RDE), when models based on equivalent circuits (EC) were used. The results lead to an equivalent circuit model that allows us to interpret the electrochemical behavior of aqueous solutions containing Fe(CN)(6)(-4) and Fe(CN)(6)(-3). With this model, we determined the values of the electrical resistance of the medium (R-s) as well as its polarization resistance (R-p), and established correlations between these values and the kinetic parameters of the system. The proposal highlights the need to introduce a new component for modeling using EC, which we have called the electrochemical diode. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of BIA2016-78460-C3-3-R, MAT2015-64139-C4-3-R and RTI2018-100910-B-C43 (MINECO/FEDER) projects. We would also like to extend our appreciation for the pre-doctoral FPU scholarships (University Teacher Training scholarship) granted to Ana Martinez Ibernon (FPU 16/00723) and Jose Enrique Ramon Zamora (FPU13/00911) by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.Martínez-Ibernón, A.; Ramón Zamora, JE.; Gandía-Romero, JM.; Gasch, I.; Valcuende Payá, MO.; Alcañiz Fillol, M.; Soto Camino, J. (2019). Characterization of electrochemical systems using potential step voltammetry. Part II: Modeling of reversible systems. Electrochimica Acta. 328:1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2019.135111S11032

    Improving phylogeny reconstruction at the strain level using peptidome datasets

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    Typical bacterial strain differentiation methods are often challenged by high genetic similarity between strains. To address this problem, we introduce a novel in silico peptide fingerprinting method based on conventional wet-lab protocols that enables the identification of potential strain-specific peptides. These can be further investigated using in vitro approaches, laying a foundation for the development of biomarker detection and application-specific methods. This novel method aims at reducing large amounts of comparative peptide data to binary matrices while maintaining a high phylogenetic resolution. The underlying case study concerns the Bacillus cereus group, namely the differentiation of Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus cereus strains. Results show that trees based on cytoplasmic and extracellular peptidomes are only marginally in conflict with those based on whole proteomes, as inferred by the established Genome-BLAST Distance Phylogeny (GBDP) method. Hence, these results indicate that the two approaches can most likely be used complementarily even in other organismal groups. The obtained results confirm previous reports about the misclassification of many strains within the B. cereus group. Moreover, our method was able to separate the B. anthracis strains with high resolution, similarly to the GBDP results as benchmarked via Bayesian inference and both Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony. In addition to the presented phylogenomic applications, whole-peptide fingerprinting might also become a valuable complementary technique to digital DNA-DNA hybridization, notably for bacterial classification at the species and subspecies level in the future.This research was funded by Grant AGL2013-44039-R from the Spanish “Plan Estatal de I+D+I”, and by Grant EM2014/046 from the “Plan Galego de investigación, innovación e crecemento 2011-2015”. BS was recipient of a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contractfrom the Spanish Ministry of Economyand Competitiveness. This work was also partially funded by the [14VI05] Contract-Programme from the University of Vigo and the Agrupamento INBIOMED from DXPCTSUG-FEDER unha maneira de facer Europa (2012/273).The research leading to these results has also received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/REGPOT-2012-2013.1 under grant agreement n˚ 316265, BIOCAPS. This document reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

    Titrimetric determination of zirconium

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    A brief literature survey on the present gravimetric, colorimetric, spectrographic, and volumetric methods for the determination of zirconium has been presented
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