Recovery of Formic Acid and Acetic Acid from Waste Water Using Reactive Distillation

Processing of biobased feedstock materials may lead to formation of multicomponent azeotropic mixtures. Reactive separations provide an opportunity to circumvent azeotropes by changing the substance properties through chemical reactions. Exemplarily several effluents from black liquor processing contain aqueous mixtures of low molecular weight fatty acids such as formic acid and acetic acid. These mixtures form inseparable azeotropes. Separation of the system formic acid–acetic acid–water by esterification with methanol was investigated. Reactive distillation experiments in batch and continuous mode confirmed complete removal of formic acid in a first step. Acetic acid may then be isolated by distillation or by reactive distillation.     

DSC studies of poly(vinyl chloride)/poly(ε-caprolactone)/poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(dimethylsiloxane) blends

Poly(vinyl chloride)/poly(ε-caprolactone)/poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(dimethylsiloxane) [PVC/PCL/(PCL-b-PDMS)] blends were prepared by solvent casting from tetrahydrofuran. The content of PVC was kept constant (60 wt%); the PCL and PCL-b-PDMS contents were varied by replacing different amounts of PCL [0–20 wt% from the PVC/PCL (60/40) blend] with PCL-b-PDMS copolymer having different molecular weights of the PCL blocks. The thermal properties of prepared blends were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry in order to analyse miscibility (through glass transition temperature) and crystallinity. Differential scanning calorimetry analyses show that the PVC/PCL/PCL-b-PDMS blends are multi-phase materials which contain a PVC plasticized with PCL phase, a block copolymer PCL-b-PDMS phase (with crystalline and amorphous PCL and PDMS domains) and a PCL phase (preponderantly crystalline).     

The hERG Potassium Channel and Drug Trapping: Insight from Docking Studies with Propafenone Derivatives

The inner cavity of the hERG potassium ion channel can accommodate large, structurally diverse compounds that can be trapped in the channel by closure of the activation gate. A small set of propafenone derivatives was synthesized, and both use‐dependency and recovery from block were tested in order to gain insight into the behavior of these compounds with respect to trapping and non‐trapping. Ligand–protein docking into homology models of the closed and open state of the hERG channel provides the first evidence for the molecular basis of drug trapping.     

alpha,alpha-Cyclopentaneglycine dipeptides capped with biaryls as tachykinin NK(2) receptor antagonists

The NK(2) receptor belongs to the family of tachykinin neurotransmitters. It has been reported to be involved in several pathological conditions, and selective antagonists are potentially useful drugs for the treatment of asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, cystitis, and depression. Starting from in-house capped dipeptide libraries, we were able to identify a number of molecules with sub-nanomolar binding affinity for the hNK(2) receptor. All were characterized by a rigid core structure with a strong constraint induced by an alpha,alpha-cyclopentaneglycine fragment. Herein we report the further elaboration of three initial basic structures. The planar benzothiophene group was substituted with a series of biphenyl and heterobiphenyl moieties that are well tolerated in terms of receptor affinity. The new compounds also maintained good antagonist potency in an in vitro functional assay, and a number of them showed significant in vivo activity after intravenous administration in our guinea pig model.     

Synthesis of Gd and (68)Ga complexes in conjugation with a conformationally optimized RGD sequence as potential MRI and PET tumor-imaging probes

We report the synthesis of novel chelates of Gd and (68)Ga with DPTA, DOTA, HP-DOA3, as well as with AAZTA, a novel chelating agent developed by our research group. These chelating agents were appropriately conjugated, prior to metal complexation, with DB58, an RGD peptidomimetic, conformationally constrained on an azabicycloalkane scaffold and endowed with high affinity for integrin α(ν)β(3) . Because α(ν)β(3) is involved in neo-angiogenesis in solid tumors and is also directly expressed in cancer cells (e.g. glioblastomas, melanomas) and ovarian, breast, and prostate cancers, these constructs could prove useful as molecular imaging probes in cancer diagnosis by MRI or PET techniques. Molecular modeling, integrin binding assays, and relaxivity assessments allowed the selection of compounds suitable for multiple expression on dendrimeric or nanoparticulate structures. These results also led us to an exploratory investigation of (68)Ga complexation for the promising (68)Ga-PET technique; the AAZTA complex 15((68)Ga) exhibited uptake in a xenograft model of glioblastoma, suggesting potentially useful developments with new probes with improved affinity.     

Plant Volatiles Enhance Behavioral Responses of Grapevine Moth Males, Lobesia botrana to Sex Pheromone

Plant volatiles play an important role in the lives of phytophagous insects, by guiding them to oviposition, feeding and mating sites. We tested the effects of different host-plant volatiles on attraction of Lobesia botrana males to the female-produced sex pheromone, in a wind tunnel. Addition of volatile emissions from grapevines or individual plant volatiles to pheromone increased the behavioral responses of L. botrana males over those to pheromone alone. At a low release rate (under-dosed) of pheromone, addition of (E)-β-caryophyllene, (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate, 1-hexanol, or 1-octen-3-ol increased all behavioral responses, from activation to pheromone source contact, while addition of (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene, (E)-β-farnesene, (Z)-3-hexenol, or methyl salicylate affected only the initial behavioral responses. Dose–response experiments suggested an optimal release ratio of 1:1000 (sex pheromone: host plant volatile). Our results highlight the role of plant volatiles in the sensory ecology of L. botrana.     

Rasta resin as support for TBD in base-catalyzed organic processes

Although its intriguing features, such as uniform functionalization through the entire beads and a very high-loading capacity are suitable candidates for solid-phase synthesis and reagent-scavenging, the use of Rasta resin as support for organocatalysis has been little explored. In this contribution, Rasta polymer has been used to preparation of high-loading Rasta-TBD. This catalyst has been able to efficiently promote several organic transformations with constantly good and promising results.     

Inorganofunctionalization of Ti(IV) and Zr(IV) on the MCM-41 Surface and its Interaction with a Mixed Valence Complex to use as Isoniazid Sensing

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - In this work, it describes the preparation of Titanium and Zirconium functionalized MCM-41 and subsequent chemical modification with...     

Efficient, global-scale quantification of absolute protein amounts by integration of targeted mass spectrometry and two-dimensional gel-based proteomics

Knowledge on absolute protein concentrations is mandatory for the simulation of biological processes in the context of systems biology. A novel approach for the absolute quantification of proteins at a global scale has been developed and its applicability demonstrated using glucose starvation of the Gram-positive model bacterium Bacillus subtilis and the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus as proof-of-principle examples. Absolute intracellular protein concentrations were initially determined for a preselected set of anchor proteins by employing a targeted mass spectrometric method and isotopically labeled internal standard peptides. Known concentrations of these anchor proteins were then used to calibrate two-dimensional (2-D) gels allowing the calculation of absolute abundance of all detectable proteins on the 2-D gels. Using this approach, concentrations of the majority of metabolic enzymes were determined, and thus a quantification of the players of metabolism was achieved. This new strategy is fast, cost-effective, applicable to any cell type, and thus of value for a broad community of laboratories with experience in 2-D gel-based proteomics and interest in quantitative approaches. Particularly, this approach could also be utilized to quantify existing data sets with the aid of a few standard anchor proteins.