Synthesis of Triazole-Based Nonionic Surfactants for Nanostructured Drug Delivery: Investigation of Their Physicochemical and Biological Aspects

Synthesis of novel nonionic surfactants has attracted attention of synthetic chemists due to the issues of the currently used commercial surfactants. The synthesis of three biocompatible triazole-based nonionic surfactants is reported for nanovesicular drug loading. The surfactants were synthesized in a three-step reaction and characterized using ¹HNMR and mass spectroscopy techniques. They were investigated for their critical micelle concentration (CMC) using a UV–Visible spectrophotometer. Their biocompatibility was investigated against cell culture and in blood. All the synthesized nonionic surfactants were further explored for their nanovesicular drug loading using clarithromycin as a model hydrophobic drug. Nonionic surfactants revealed lower CMC in 35–45 μM and were less hemolytic and cytotoxic. They were capable of self-assembling in nanosize niosomal vesicles encapsulating increased amounts of drug. The results suggest the synthesized nonionic surfactants as biocompatible nanotechnology-based drug-delivery vehicles.     

Land surface deformation parameter estimation using persistent scatterer interferometry approach in an underground metal mining environment

Persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) is a major advancement in radar interferometry for detecting and monitoring land deformation. PSI is the most advanced class of differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR) techniques. The technique conquers the main drawbacks of the conventional DInSAR technique by identifying radar targets having stable backscattering characteristics in time. These targets are termed as persistent scatterers (PSs). The higher the number of PSs for a study area the higher the accuracy of the results will be, which is most common for deformation analysis in urban areas. However, for non-urban or highly de-correlated areas, PSs density collapses significantly, which needs to increase for optimal results. For this purpose, partially coherent/distributed scatterers (DSs) are being exploited in addition to the PSs. The field surface of this study is one of the copper-rich mining belts in India, which consists of two major underground metal mines. Scatterer characterziation of the field surface under study suggests that most of the scatterers are DSs and very few scatterers under the influence of the mining zone are PSs. In addition to this, a preliminary investigation of deformation characteristics of the field surface under study reveals that the spatial extent of deformation is small/localized along with slow and non-linear deformation. Keeping in view scatterer and deformation characteristics of the field surface under study, in this research paper, a Quasi-Persistent Scatterer based PSI approach has been applied using high-resolution TerraSAR-X interferometric data stack (10 images) to generate deformation time series and deformation velocity. Furthermore, results obtained from the applied PSI approach and ground-based observations (using GNSS) have shown good agreement with each other, in the order of ?5.20?mm/year (LOS) and ?5.38?mm/year (subsiding), respectively.     

Ag2O–Al2O3–ZrO2 Trimetallic Nanocatalyst for High Performance Photodegradation of Nicosulfuron Herbicide

Topics in Catalysis - In the present study, Ag2O–Al2O3–ZrO2 based trimetallic oxide nanocatalyst was designed using simple microwave assisted reduction method. It was characterized...     

A Channel Borrowing Approach for Cluster-based Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Networks

Mobile Networks and Applications - In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), energy-efficient routing is required to conserve the scarce resources of these networks. Various energy-efficient routing...     

Multidimensional and transient modeling of an alkaline water electrolysis cell

A three-dimensional (3-D) transient numerical model of an alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) cell with potassium hydroxide solution is developed by rigorously accounting for the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions and resulting species and charge transport through various AWE components. First, the AWE model is experimentally validated against a polarization curve corresponding to a wide range of currents as high as 2.0 A·cm^?2. In general, the simulation results compare well with the measured data and further reveal the operating characteristics of AWE cells, showing key distributions of solid/electrolyte potentials and multidimensional contours of reactant and product concentrations at various current densities. In particular, the contribution of hydroxide ion (OH^?) diffusion to the ohmic losses through porous electrodes and a porous separator are quantitatively examined at low and high electrolyte flow rates. The present full 3-D AWE model provides a basic understanding of the electrochemical and transport phenomena and can be further applied to practical large-scale AWE cell and stack geometries for grid-scale hydrogen production.     

Novel superabsorbent materials from bacterial cellulose

A novel process for the production of superabsorbent materials (hydrogels) from bacterial cellulose (BC) was developed. Prior to crosslinking with a water‐soluble polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA), BC was first carboxymethylated and functionalized with glycidyl methacrylate. The degree of crosslinking influenced the swelling properties of the hydrogels. The use of greater amounts of PEGDA enhanced the formation of a thicker macromolecular network containing fewer capillary spaces in the crosslinked gel. The maximum water retention value of the hydrogels containing 2.5–3.5 mmol of carboxyl groups per gram of gel reached 125 g g^?1 in distilled water, and 29 g g^?1 in saline (0.9% NaCl solution). The highly porous hydrogel architecture with a pore size of 350–600 µm created a high specific surface area. This enables rapid mass penetration in superabsorbent applications. The superabsorbent hydrogels reached 80% of their maximum water absorption capacity in 30 min. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry     

Design and optimization of radioisotope sources for betavoltaic batteries

A Monte Carlo source model using PENELOPE was developed to investigate different tritiated metals in order to design a better radioisotope source for betavoltaic batteries. The source model takes into account the self‐absorption of beta particles in the source which is a major factor for an efficient source design. The average beta energy, beta flux, source power output, and source efficiency were estimated for various source thicknesses. The simulated results for titanium tritide with 0° and 90° angular distributions of beta particles were validated with experimental results. The importance of the backscattering effect due to isotropic particle emission was analyzed. The results showed that the normalized average beta energy increases with the source thickness, and it reaches peak energy depending on the density and the specific activity of the source. The beta flux and power output also increase with increasing source thickness. However, the incremental increase in beta flux and power output becomes minimal for higher thicknesses, as the source efficiency decreases significantly at higher thicknesses due to the self‐absorption effect. Thus, a saturation threshold is reached. A low‐density source material such as beryllium tritide provided a higher power output with higher efficiency. A maximum power output of approximately 4 mW/cm³ was obtained for beryllium tritide with SiC. A form factor approach was used to estimate the optimum source thickness. The optimum source thickness was found near the thickness where the peak beta particle average energy occurs.     

Analysis of phase transition,structural and dynamical properties of R290 using molecular dynamics simulation

Propane (R290), a hydrocarbon refrigerant, is an excellent choice of cooling fluids for use in refrigeration and air conditioning systems considering the environmental point of view and system performance. The phase transition phenomenon and structural and dynamic properties of R290 were analyzed through a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The densities, isobaric heat capacities and viscosities were computed and the variations of density, volume, potential energy and the nucleation process were examined to investigate the effects of condensation temperature on the phase transition rate. The mean square displacement and velocity autocorrelation function for different temperatures were simulated for dynamical analysis. Radial distribution functions were investigated to get insight into the structural analysis at the atomic level. Shear viscosity and isobaric heat capacity obtained by the present simulation showed a good agreement with the REFPROP data. The structural analysis revealed that the phase transition of R290 did not affect its intramolecular structure.