Hydrochemistry characterisation of protected marine ecosystems in Cadiz

Wetlands have a great natural wealth due to their borderline nature, representing the point where lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere converge. The wetlands of Cadiz, at the southern extreme of Europe, also play an important role as a stopover area for migratory birds. This paper presents the results of a sampling project conducted during the spring of 1997 in the Guadiaro and Palmones Rivers, the Barbate estuary, Sancti Petri sound, and the San Pedro River salt marsh. For each system, three sampling stations were established along a salinity gradient, and these variables were measured: salinity, pH and chloride, sulphate, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, nitrite, nitrate, silicate ammonia, organic carbon, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll and phaeopigment concentrations. Several behaviours were found for the various systems: the Guadiaro and Palmones Rivers fit a fluvial estuary pattern, with low ionic concentrations and poor remineralisation. The San Pedro River and Sancti Petri sound are tidal systems with a typical seawater composition and high benthic regeneration. The Barbate estuary represents an intermediate scenario between the preceding ones, with a pronounced salinity gradient along its course.Los humedales tienen una gran riqueza natural debido a su carácter de franja donde convergen litosfera, hidrosfera y atmósfera. Los de la provincia de Cádiz, en el extremo meridional de Europa, tienen además una gran importancia como lugar de paso de las aves migratorias. En este trabajo se exponen los resultados obtenidos durante la primavera de 1997 en los estuarios de los ríos Guadiaro y Palmones, el estuario del Barbate, en las marismas del Caño de Sancti Petri y las del río San Pedro. Para cada uno de los sistemas se establecieron tres estaciones de muestreo a lo largo del gradiente de salinidad, y se determinó la salinidad, el pH y las concentraciones de cloruro, sulfato, sodio, potasio, calcio, magnesio, nitrito, nitrato, silicato, amonio, fosfato, carbono orgánico, oxígeno disuelto, clorofila a y feopigmentos. Se encontraron diferentes comportamientos para los distintos sistemas: el Guadiaro y el Palmones responden a un patrón de estuario de tipo fluvial, con concentraciones iónicas muy bajas y una escasa remineralización de la materia orgánica. El río San Pedro y el Caño de Sancti Petri son, por el contrario, sistemas mareales con aguas de comportamiento típicamente marino y una alta regeneración bentónica. El estuario del Barbate es una situación intermedia entre las anteriores y posee un marcado gradiente de salinidades a lo largo de su cauce.Instituto Español de Oceanografí

Hydrolysis study of bis-1,2-(triethoxysilyl)ethane silane by NMR

The hydrolysis process of bis-1,2-(triethoxysilyl)ethane (BTSE) was studied in aqueous and methanol solutions at pH 4. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) evaluation of different solutions was carried out for 7 days. Unlike other researches, methanol-rich solutions are proven inadequate to reach a complete hydrolysis process. In water-rich solutions, hydrolysis takes place for 3 days, 85% of the silane molecules being transformed into silanols; this amount continues increasing up to the seventh day of hydrolysis.Authors wish to acknowledge the Ministry of the Environment (through project 136/PC08/3-11.2) for their financial support in this research

Large Attractive Depletion Interactions in Soft Repulsive-Sphere Binary Mixtures

We consider binary mixtures of soft repulsive spherical particles and calculate the depletion interaction between two big spheres mediated by the fluid of small spheres, using different theoretical and simulation methods. The validity of the theoretical approach, a virial expansion in terms of the density of the small spheres, is checked against simulation results. Attention is given to the approach toward the hard-sphere limit, and to the effect of density and temperature on the strength of the depletion potential. Our results indicate, surprisingly, that even a modest degree of softness in the pair potential governing the direct interactions between the particles may lead to a significantly more attractive total effective potential for the big spheres than in the hard-sphere case. This might lead to significant differences in phase behavior, structure and dynamics of a binary mixture of soft repulsive spheres. In particular, a perturbative scheme is applied to predict the phase diagram of an effective system of big spheres interacting via depletion forces for a size ratio of small and big spheres of 0.2; this diagram includes the usual fluid-solid transition but, in the soft-sphere case, the metastable fluid-fluid transition, which is probably absent in hard-sphere mixtures, is close to being stable with respect to direct fluid-solid coexistence. From these results the interesting possibility arises that, for sufficiently soft repulsive particles, this phase transition could become stable. Possible implications for the phase behavior of real colloidal dispersions are discussed.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures; version accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physic

Biaxial nematic and smectic phases of parallel particles with different cross sections

We have calculated the phase diagrams of one--component fluids made of five types of biaxial particles differing in their cross sections. The orientation of the principal particle axis is fixed in space, while the second axis is allowed to freely rotate. We have constructed a free-energy density functional based on fundamental--measure theory to study the relative stability of nematic and smectic phases with uniaxial, biaxial and tetratic symmetries. Minimization of the density functional allows us to study the phase behavior of the biaxial particles as a function of the cross-section geometry. For low values of the aspect ratio of the particle cross section, we obtain smectic phases with tetratic symmetry, although metastable with respect to the crystal, as our MC simulation study indicates. For large particle aspect ratios and in analogy with previous work [Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 5, 3700 (2003)], we have found a four--phase point where four spinodals, corresponding to phase transitions between phases with different symmetries, meet together. The location of this point is quite sensitive to particle cross section, which suggests that optimizing the particle geometry could be a useful criterion in the design of colloidal particles that can exhibit an increased stability of the biaxial nematic phase with respect to other competing phases with spatial order.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, submitted to PR