Comparative performance study of polyethersulfone and polysulfone membranes for trypsin isolation from goat pancreas using affinity ultrafiltration

The comparative performance of polysulfone and polyethersulfone membranes (of 30 kDa MWCO) in isolation of trypsin from goat pancreas by affinity ultrafiltration is examined using cross-linked soybean trypsin inhibitor (STI) as affinity ligand, 0.1 M Tris–HCl as wash buffer and 0.5 M KCl–HCl as elution buffer in an unstirred, dead-ended module at 392.28 kPa (4 kg/cm²) transmembrane pressure and room temperature (ca. 30 °C) with 1:1 (v/v) ratio of pancreatic extract and wash buffer. No active trypsin was found to be detectably present in the washing phase permeate in any of the experiments, indicating good binding efficiency of the target enzyme with the ligand employed. The total protein recovery obtained with the polyethersulfone membrane (70%) is 1.5 times higher than that with the polysulfone (46%). Yields of active trypsin for the two membranes are, however, similar (74% for polyethersulfone and 70% for polysulfone) although comparable with earlier reported trypsin yield (from porcine pancreas). In both the washing and elution phases of affinity ultrafiltration, the polyethersulfone membrane facilitates consistently and substantially higher volumetric flux as well as permeated protein throughput than the polysulfone.     

Molecular interactions alter clay and polymer structure in polymer clay nanocomposites.

In this work, using photoacoustic Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) we have studied the structural distortion of clay crystal structure in organically modified montmorillonite (OMMT) and polymer clay nanocomposites (PCN). To study the effect of organic modifiers on the distortion of crystal structure of clay, we have synthesized OMMTs and PCNs containing same polymer and clay but with three different organic modifiers (12-aminolauric acid, n-dodecylamine, and 1,12-diaminododecane), and conducted the FTIR study on these PCNs. Our previous molecular dynamics (MD) study on these PCNs reveals that significant nonbonded interactions (van der Waals, electrostatic interactions) exist between the different constituents (polymer, organic modifier, and clay) of nanocomposites. Previous work based on X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) on the same set of PCNs shows that crystallinity of polymer in PCNs have changed significantly in comparison to those in pristine polymer; and, the nonbonded interactions between different constituents of PCN are responsible for the change in crystal structure of polymer in PCN. In this work to evaluate the structural distortion of crystal structure of clay in OMMTs and PCNs, the positions of bands corresponding to different modes of vibration of Si-O bonds are determined from the deconvolution of broad Si-O bands in OMMTs and PCNs obtained from FTIR spectra. Intensity and area under the Si-O bands are indicative of orientation of clay crystal structures in OMMTs and PCNs. Significant changes in the Si-O bands are observed from each vibration mode in OMMTs and PCNs containing three different organic modifiers indicating that organic modifiers influence the structural orientation of silica tetrahedra in OMMTs and PCNs. Deconvolution of Si-O bands in OMMTs indicate a band at approximately 1200 cm(-1) that is orientation-dependent Si-O band. The specific changes in intensity and area under this band for OMMTs with three different organic modifiers further confirm the change in structural orientation of silica tetrahedra of OMMTs by organic modifiers. Thus, from our work it is evident that organic modifiers have significant influence on the structure of polymer and clay in PCNs. It appears that in nanocomposites, in addition to strong interactions at interfaces between constituents, the structure of different phases (clay and polymer) of PCN are also altered, which does not occur in conventional composite materials. Thus, the mechanisms governing composite action in nanocomposites are quite different from that of conventional macro composites.     

An Optical Layer Lightpath Management Protocol for WDM AONs

In this work, we propose a control protocol for lightpath management in the optical layer of all-optical networks (AONs). AONs follow a layered structure, as used by various network standards, where each layer communicates with its peer through Protocol Data Units (PDUs). In the context of Open System Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model (RM), a new layer, called optical layer, has been introduced in the AON architecture to manage the lightpath related functions. The optical layer lies in between the physical layer and the data link layer. The objective of this paper is to define a specification for an optical layer protocol for managing lightpaths in AONs. In order to study the dynamics of the optical layer protocol system, we first employ the communicating finite state machine model to represent the protocol. Then a reachability analysis of the model is performed to verify the protocol. This paper shows how the optical layer protocol can be specified formally and made error-free by the step-wise refinement of an initial specification, where validation is done after each refinement.     

Ionic liquid promoted dehydrogenation of amine boranes: A review

Ionic liquid (IL) mediated dehydrogenation of amine borane has attracted the attention from scientific community in last fifteen years. A considerable effort has been made to explore the suitable ILs for the amine borane dehydrogenation, kinetic mechanism, exploring molecular interaction through experimental and computational approaches. Further, the role and selection of ILs are elaborately documented. However the proof of the concept study has not been commercialized to date. This review aims to present a comprehensive discussion on the literature update, selection, role of IL, corresponding mechanistic analysis, regeneration of spent fuel and modeling of amine borane/IL systems. Further, identifying the knowledge gap the review would highlight the future progress of this field.     

Design of thermometer code-to-gray code converter circuit in quantum-dot cellular automata for nano-computing network

Photonic Network Communications - This article proposes the thermometer code converter, which eliminates the requirement of binary code converter to generate gray codes in different digital...     

Development of Graphene Oxide Nanosheets as Potential Biomaterials in Cancer Therapeutics: An In-Vitro Study Against Breast Cancer Cell Line

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - Recent advances in nanotechnology and nano biomaterials have attracted considerable attention in the field of cancer therapy. The...     

iMusic: a session-sensitive clustered classical music recommender system using contextual representation learning

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Music has emerged to be of paramount importance to humanity and is not only considered as a source of entertainment but also an agent that causes social and...