Expectations for Manuscripts Contributing to the Field of Solvents in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

N/

Effect of dicationic ionic liquids on lyotropic liquid crystals formed by a binary system composed of Triton-X 100 and water

In this work, binary mixtures of a non-ionic surfactant (Triton X-100) and water were studied with concentrations of 30%wt H2O, showing, lamellar mesophase at temperatures below 10oC. Different dicationic ionic liquids were used for doping these mesophases: 1,n-bis(3-methylimidazolium-1-yl)alkane, 1,n-bis(1-methylpyrrolidinium-1-yl)alkane and 1,n-bis(pyridinium-N-yl)alkane dibromide, where n = 6 and 8. Polarized Optical Microscopy and Small-Angle X-ray Scattering were used for identifying the mesophases and the influence of different dicationic ionic liquids on the lyotropic liquid crystals phase transitions. The addition of dicationic ionic liquids to the lyotropic liquid crystals samples led to changes in transition temperature and in mesophase structure itself (such as characteristic distances)

Continuous-Flow Alkene Metathesis: The Model Reaction of 1-Octene Catalyzed by Re2O7/alfa-Al2O3 with Supercritical CO2 as a Carrier

In the presence of Re2O7 supported on γ-Al2O3, the self-metathesis of 1-octene was conveniently carried out under continuous-flow (CF) conditions using supercritical CO2 (scCO2) as a carrier. This investigation allowed optimization of reaction parameters, the best values of which were found to be 100 °C and 90 bar, operating at flow rates of 0.05 and 1 mL min−1 for 1-octene and scCO2, respectively, the reaction proceeded with very good self-metathesis selectivity (>90%) and an average productivity of ∼0.24 mL tetradecene gRe −1 min−1 . Although the catalyst was completely deactivated after the first 100–150 min of reaction, it could be recycled for (at least) five subsequent reactions without any loss of performance. The results provided incontrovertible evidence that for the investigated reaction, scCO2was a superior carrier with respect to conventional liquids, such as toluene or n-hexane

Vascular endothelial growth factor-D is an independent prognostic factor in epithelial ovarian carcinoma.

We assessed the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, VEGF-D and their receptor VEGFR-3 by immunohistochemistry in 59 epithelial ovarian carcinomas, 11 borderline tumours and 20 benign cystadenomas. VEGF-C and VEGF-D were generally expressed in tumour cells and also in endothelia adjacent to tumour nests which showed a strong staining for them. VEGFR-3 was expressed in lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells adjacent to tumour nests. Immunoreactivity was significantly more frequent as lesions progressed from a benign tumour to advanced carcinoma. A strong correlation was found between VEGF-C and VEGF-D detected in carcinoma and VEGFR-3 detected in neighbouring endothelial cells. Increased expression of VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and peritoneal metastasis outside the pelvis. There was a significant correlation between the high levels of VEGF-C and VEGF-D proteins, and poor survival. The presence of VEGF-D was an independent prognostic indicator by multivariate analysis. We conclude that VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 play an important role in lymphatic spread and intraperitoneal tumour development in ovarian carcinoma. Since VEGF-D was found to be an independent predictor of poor outcome, its measurement, together with other prognostic markers may improve prospective identification of patients with a poor prognosis

Remote-controlled experiments with cloud chemistry

Developing cleaner chemical processes often involves sophisticated flow-chemistry equipment that is not available in many economically developing countries. For reactions where it is the data that are important rather than the physical product, the networking of chemists across the internet to allow remote experimentation offers a viable solution to this problem

Unravelling synergistic effects in bi-metallic catalysts: deceleration of palladium–gold nanoparticle coarsening in the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde

In this work, we demonstrate that the synergistic effect of PdAu nanoparticles (NPs) in hydrogenation reactions is not only related to high activity but also to their stability when compared to Pd mono-metallic NPs. To demonstrate this, a series of mono- and bi-metallic NPs: Pd, Pd0.75Au0.25, Pd0.5Au0.5, Pd0.25Au0.75 and Au in ionic liquid [C4C1Im][NTf2] have been fabricated via a magnetron sputtering process. Bi-metallic NPs possess external shells enriched with Pd atoms that interact with [NTf2]− of the ionic liquid resulting in enhanced catalytic performance in hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde compared to their mono-metallic counterparts. This is ascribed to their higher stability over 24 h of reaction, whilst the catalytic activity and selectivity are comparable for both catalysts. Using a bespoke kinetic model for in situ catalyst deactivation investigations and electron microscopy imaging at the nanoscale, we have shown that PdAu has a deactivation rate constant of 0.13 h−1, compared to 0.33 h−1 for Pd NPs, leaving 60% and 40% of available sites after the reaction, respectively. Beyond that, the kinetic model demonstrates that the reaction product has a strong stabilizing factor for bimetallic NPs against coarsening and deactivation, which is not the case for Pd NPs. In summary, our kinetic model enables the evaluation of the catalyst performance over the entire chemical reaction space, probing the contribution of each individual component of the reaction mixture and allowing the design of high-performance catalysts

Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction

A key strategy for minimizing our reliance on precious metals is to increase the fraction of surface atoms and improve the metal-support interface. In this work, we employ a solvent/ligand/counterion-free method to deposit copper in the atomic form directly onto a nanotextured surface of graphitized carbon nanofibers (GNFs). Our results demonstrate that under these conditions, copper atoms coalesce into nanoparticles securely anchored to the graphitic step edges, limiting their growth to 2–5 nm. The resultant hybrid Cu/GNF material displays high selectivity in the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) for formate production with a faradaic efficiency of ~94% at -0.38 V vs RHE and a high turnover frequency of 2.78 × 106 h-1. The Cu nanoparticles adhered to the graphitic step edges significantly enhance electron transfer to CO2. Long-term CO2RR tests coupled with atomic-scale elucidation of changes in Cu/GNF reveal nanoparticles coarsening, and a simultaneous increase in the fraction of single Cu atoms. These changes in the catalyst structure make the onset of the CO2 reduction potential more negative, leading to less formate production at -0.38 V vs RHE, correlating with a less efficient competition of CO2 with H2O for adsorption on single Cu atoms on the graphitic surfaces, revealed by density functional theory calculations

Expectations for Manuscripts on Biomass Feedstocks and Processing in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

N/

People and Things on the Move: Domestic Material Culture, Poverty and Mobility in Victorian London

© 2016, The Author(s). The development of what Mayne and Lawrence (Urban History 26: 325–48, 1999) termed “ethnographic” approaches to studying nineteenth-century households and urban communities has gathered momentum in recent years. As such research agendas have taken hold and been applied to new contexts, so critiques, methodological developments, and new intellectual and theoretical currents, have provided opportunities to enhance and develop approaches. This article contributes to this on-going process. Drawing upon household archaeological research on Limehouse, a poor neighborhood in Victorian London, and inspired by the theoretical insights provided by the “new mobilities paradigm,” it aims to place “mobility” as a central and enabling intellectual framework for understanding the relationships between people, place, and poverty. Poor communities in nineteenth-century cities were undeniably mobile and transient. Historians and archaeologists have often regarded this mobility as an obstacle to studying everyday life in such contexts. However, examining temporal routines and geographical movements across a variety of time frames and geographical scales, this article argues that mobility is actually key to understanding urban life and an important mechanism for interpreting the fragmented material and documentary traces left by poor households in the nineteenth-century metropolis.We are grateful to the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council who funded the research upon which this paper is based (Grant Reference AH/E002285/1): ‘Living in Victorian London: Towards a Material History of Everyday Domestic Life in the Nineteenth-Century Metropolis

Mind your step: the effects of mobile phone use on gaze behavior in stair climbing

Stair walking is a hazardous activity and a common cause of fatal and non-fatal falls. Previous studies have assessed the role of eye movements in stair walking by asking people to repeatedly go up and down stairs in quiet and controlled conditions, while the role of peripheral vision was examined by giving participants specific fixation instructions or working memory tasks. We here extend this research to stair walking in a natural environment with other people present on the stairs and a now common secondary task: Using one's mobile phone. Results show that using the mobile phone strongly draws one's attention away from the stairs, but that the distribution of gaze locations away from the phone is little influenced by using one's phone. Phone use also increased the time needed to walk the stairs, but handrail use remained low. These results indicate that limited foveal vision suffices for adequate stair walking in normal environments, but that mobile phone use has a strong influence on attention, which may pose problems when unexpected obstacles are encountered