50 research outputs found
Dendrimer-Guest Interactions: Challenging Conventional Wisdom
Solutions to many future challenges - including water purification, drug delivery, and energy storage - will require innovative new materials. Dendrimers are a class of materials with wide-ranging applications whose behavior is not fully understood. In many potential applications, dendrimers interact with small molecules. Our work focuses on describing the fundamental mechanisms governing the interactions between dendrimers and hydrocarbons using molecular modeling and computer simulations. A common view of dendrimer host-guest interactions is that the guest molecules are encapsulated in protected interior voids within the dendrimer structure. Our results present an alternative picture and show that the association of a model aromatic hydrocarbon, naphthalene (NPH), involves temporary pockets formed by the dendrimer branches and interactions between the NPH molecules themselves
Fluctuations of water near extended hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces
We use molecular dynamics simulations of the SPC-E model of liquid water to
derive probability distributions for water density fluctuations in probe
volumes of different shapes and sizes, both in the bulk as well as near
hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces. To obtain our results, we introduce a
biased sampling of coarse-grained densities, which in turn biases the actual
solvent density. The technique is easily combined with molecular dynamics
integration algorithms. Our principal result is that the probability for
density fluctuations of water near a hydrophobic surface, with or without
surface-water attractions, is akin to density fluctuations at the water-vapor
interface. Specifically, the probability of density depletion near the surface
is significantly larger than that in bulk. In contrast, we find that the
statistics of water density fluctuations near a model hydrophilic surface are
similar to that in the bulk
Sitting at the edge: How biomolecules use hydrophobicity to tune their interactions and function
Water near hydrophobic surfaces is like that at a liquid-vapor interface,
where fluctuations in water density are substantially enhanced compared to that
in bulk water. Here we use molecular simulations with specialized sampling
techniques to show that water density fluctuations are similarly enhanced, even
near hydrophobic surfaces of complex biomolecules, situating them at the edge
of a dewetting transition. Consequently, water near these surfaces is sensitive
to subtle changes in surface conformation, topology, and chemistry, any of
which can tip the balance towards or away from the wet state, and thus
significantly alter biomolecular interactions and function. Our work also
resolves the long-standing puzzle of why some biological surfaces dewet and
other seemingly similar surfaces do not.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Seasonal distribution of chlorophyll-<i>α</i> in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of India
292-297Seasonal distribution of chlorophyll-α (chl-α) in the different sectors of the EEZ of India was studied based on data from 430 stations over the period from 1962 to 1988. The annual average chl-α for the entire euphotic zone of EEZ was 12.0 mg m-2 whereas the seasonal average was calculated to be 14.2, 12.8 and 7.4 mg m-2 during premonsoon (February-May), SW monsoon (June-September) and postmonsoon (October-January) respectively. The maximum average (18.0 mg m-2) was noticed in the Arabian Sea during premonsoon followed by the Bay of Bengal sector during SW monsoon (14.8 mg m-2) and the Lakshadweep Sea during premonsoon (14.5 mg m-2). The range of chl-α (0.2 to 100.6 mg m-2) was found maximum during premonsoon followed by SW monsoon in the euphotic zone of EEZ of India
Temperature error in digital bathythermograph data
234-236Simultaneous Digital Bathythermograph (DBT) and Nansen Cast data collected during two cruises of R.V. Gaveshani (GV-117 and GV-118) and archived in Indian Oceanographic Data Centre (IODC) are used to determine existing temperature errors in DBT. The resulting mean error for DBT data from the GV-117 cruise varies from -0.5 to - 1 oC, while it varied between -0.3 and -0.6 oC for data from cruise GV-118. For both the data sets, the error shows consistently negative bias from surface to 800 m depth, however there is no apparent or measurable systematic dependence of the error on depth. Considering the given temperature accuracy of 0.05 oC, the observed DBT error, varying from -0.3 to -1 oC, is significant and such offsets should be removed from DBT archives. It is found that a corrective measure of +0.5 oC, equivalent to the mean surface offset obtained from two cruises, can considerably reduce the temperature error at all DBT depths
PAMAM Dendrimers and Graphene: Materials for Removing Aromatic Contaminants from Water
We present results
from experiments and atomistic molecular dynamics
simulations on the remediation of naphthalene by polyamidoamine (PAMAM)
dendrimers and graphene oxide (GrO). Specifically, we investigate
3<sup>rd</sup>–6<sup>th</sup> generation (G3-G6) PAMAM dendrimers
and GrO with different levels of oxidation. The work is motivated
by the potential applications of these emerging nanomaterials in removing
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contaminants from water. Our experimental
results indicate that GrO outperforms dendrimers in removing naphthalene
from water. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that the prominent
factors driving naphthalene association to these seemingly disparate
materials are similar. Interestingly, we find that cooperative interactions
between the naphthalene molecules play a significant role in enhancing
their association to the dendrimers and GrO. Our findings highlight
that while selection of appropriate materials is important, the interactions
between the contaminants themselves can also be important in governing
the effectiveness of a given material. The combined use of experiments
and molecular dynamics simulations allows us to comment on the possible
factors resulting in better performance of GrO in removing polyaromatic
contaminants from water