Digital Commons Network^™

Heats Of Solvation Of Organic Liquids In Room Temperature Ionic Liquids, Paula Jeanette Beach

Masters Theses

Ionic liquids are of potential use in industry as reusable, non-polluting solvents. Their thermochemical properties need to be known to facilitate planning of processes and experiments using these solvents. Two ionic liquids: 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([C4mim]PF6 or [bmim]PF6) and 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([hmim]NTf2) were studied using a calorimeter. Various organic liquids were introduced into the solvents and their heats of solution were measured and tabulated. Potential effects of certain functional groups such as alcohol, amine, carboxylic acid, ketone, and aldehyde were examined as well as aromatics versus chains and saturated rings.

The Use Of Lanthanide Triflates As A Method For Reducing Ytterbium(Iii) To Ytterbium(Ii), Latasha Michelle Garrett

Masters Theses

High purity lutetium (99.999%) is employed in the manufacture of cerium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate. Such lutetium is in high demand because the cerium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate is the best gamma-detecting scintillator known. Solvent extraction is the most widely used method for separating the rare earths on an industrial scale at 99.999% purity. However, this process is time consuming and requires 80-100 separation stages. The major difficulty in pure lutetium production is the separation from the adjacent element, ytterbium. If ytterbium(III) could be reduced to ytterbium(II), this would permit a different chemistry between ytterbium(II) and the trivalent state elements, allowing a more facile …

Characterization Of P62, Hah1 And Their Interaction With The Wilson Disease Protein, Paul Sifuna Oshule

Masters Theses

Wilson disease is an autosomal recessive disorder resulting in the accumulation of copper in the body primarily in the liver and brain. In order to understand the pathogenesis of Wilson disease, our laboratory is studying several different proteins. Wilson disease protein (ATP7B) is a P-type ATPase which acts to remove excess copper from the cells. The p62 subunit of the dynactin complex is a protein whose function is still unknown but it has been proposed to have a copperdependent interaction with ATP7B. HAH1 is a human metallochaperone that binds copper as it comes into the cells from CTR1, a permease. …

Optical And Electrochemical Molecular And Nanoscale Sensors For The Selective Detection Of Organophosphorus Based Pesticides, Chandrima De

Masters Theses

Organophosphorus based pesticides are highly toxic and represent serious environmental concerns. These compounds tend to easily enter ground water and cause drastic pollution. The toxicity levels of the organophosphorus pesticides however are based on their structures, and hence methods for their selective detection are in high demand. The creation of new materials for sensing and actuation requires careful manipulation of the responsive units required to control analyte selectivity. We have successfully designed and synthesized a molecular sensor based on the family of stilbenes that not only can detect organophosphorus pesticides, but also distinguish between them. Four different pesticides have been …

Origin Of Size-Dependent Energy Transfer From Photoexcited Cdse Quantum Dots And Fluorescent Dyes To Gold Nanoparticles, Mariana Kondon

Masters Theses

The photoluminescence quenching of CdSe quantum dots (QD) and fluorescent dyes by hexanethiolate Mono layer Protected Clusters (MPCs) with core diameters of 1.1- 4 .9 nm is described.

The CdSe QD investigated had the following core diameters of 2.0, 2.6, 3.4 and 6.9 nm. The florescent dyes used were: Coumarin 440 (CM440), Fluorescein 548 (F548), Rhodamine 6G (R6G), Pyromethene 597 (PM597) and Lyssamine Dye (LD700). Experimental evidence suggests that the photoluminescence quenching of both CdSe QD and the fluorescent dyes occurs through energy transfer and that the AuMPCs are efficient quenchers in both cases. The larger MPCs are more efficient …

Quantum Monte Carlo Simulations Of Many-Dimensional Harmonic Oscillators: A Study Of 2Nd And 4Th Order Propagators, Brent-Jon Bjorgvin Magnusson

Masters Theses

Because the Schrödinger equation cannot be solved analytically for systems larger than hydrogen, approximate solution methods must be applied to study systems of chemical interest. Quantum Monte Carlo is one of these methods. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations involve the diffusion of walkers through configuration space and necessitate the use of one of two imaginary time propagators, 2^nd or 4^th order. The choice of the propagator implemented depends on a balance between accuracy and efficiency. Obtaining accurate solutions is the primary objective; once this is accomplished, finding ways to make the simulations efficient is the next intention. Using a …

The Synthesis And Stability Of Endohedral Actinium-225(225Ac@C60), Jofa Gideon Mwakisege

Masters Theses

Due to their chemical and thermodynamic stability, fullerenes could play an important role in encapsulation of radionuclides for applications in radio-immunotherapy. In this thesis, we report the first synthesis of actinium endohedral fullerenes. The alpha-emitter Actinium-225 (²²⁵Ac, t_1/2 =10 d) was trapped in fullerenes by the direct current (D.C) arc discharge-catcher method in a He atmosphere. Endohedral ²²⁵Ac and the bulk of fullerene C₆₀ was dissolved from the catcher electrode (a Pt disk covered with a thin layer of C₆₀) in toluene under N₂, and converted to the malonic ester derivative. …

Blocked Localized Wavefunction Analysis Of Π And Σ Bonds In The Metal Carbonyl, Kazuhito Nakashima

Masters Theses

The bonding features in group 10 and 11 metal carbonyls Ni(CO), Pd(CO), Pt(CO), [Cu(CO)]+, [Ag(CO)]+, and [Au(CO)]+ have been studied with BLW method. The carbon monoxide is well known as both a π acceptor and a σ donor. The π back bonding and o bonding are synergistic in these metal carbonyl complexes, because the π donation from the metals polarizes the metals and creates a negative force field as an additional driving force on the σ donation from the carbon end of CO vice versa. The synergistic effect in the metal-carbonyl bonds can be described by decomposing the binding energy …

The Utilization Of Microwave Irradiation In Organic Synthesis: Organotrifluoroborate And Alumina Chemistry, Arie A. Dadush

Masters Theses

The utilization of microwave irradiation in chemistry started in the 1950’s. Due to operational difficulties, organic chemists only began using microwaves in the mid- 1980’s, when better instruments were invented. This work describe the utilization of microwaves in two areas of organic chemistry: microwave enhanced reactions using organotrifluoroborates and microwave irradiation reactions catalyzed by highly acidic alumina.

In part one, a basic understanding of microwave irradiation is presented followed by the exploration of three major reactions. The first comprises the coupling of allyl acetate and cinnamyl acetate with various substituted potassium arylvinyltrifluoroborates to produce a variety of 1,4-dienes. The second …

N-(Deoxyadenosine-8-Yl)-4-Aminobiphenyl Adduct Formation In Vitro On Tp53 Exon7 Genome: Quantitation By Lc-Esi-Ms/Ms, Paul René Knoll

Masters Theses

The p53 protein has been documented to be mutated in more than 50% of late stage bladder cancers and tobacco causes 50% of all bladder tumors. The 4- arninobiphenyl (ABP) carcinogen comprises 5 ng per cigarette in the smoke and is a known bladder carcinogen. The research goal in the present study was to compare the reactivity of rat liver S-9 fraction activated 4-arninobiphenyl with the 45-mer sense strand of the TP53 exon7 gene to the respective anti-sense strand. The specific and sensitive technique of LC-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used for quantitation. The authentic standard of N-(adenine-8yl-)-4-arninobiphenyl (A-ABP) …

Real-Time Analysis And Investigation Of The Mechanism Of The Palladium On Carbon Catalyzed Isomerization Of Megestrolacetate, Charlene K. Wiglesworth

Masters Theses

Megestrol Acetate is a semi-synthetic steroid hormone of the progestin family and currently used as a drug therapy in many areas including treatments of cancers and AIDS. The final step to form the bulk drug is an isomerization using palladium on carbon with cyclohexene as an activator. This step is sensitive to catalyst quality and is hazardous to sample because of the reactivity of the catalyst. Physical and catalytic properties of the catalyst were evaluated, as were the effects of solid support and different washing strategies. Response of the reaction mixture to catalyst poisons was studied as a function of …

Obscurant Oil Characterization Produced Through Vaporization By Exhaust Gas Of Mini-Jet Turbine Engine, Hossein Daniel Bahaghighat

Masters Theses

"Obscurants have been used for centuries to conceal and protect military assets from direct enemy attack, or as a signal between units. Obscurants still play a significant role in protecting soldiers on the battlefield. This research was geared towards development of highly efficient man portable obscurant generation system to demonstrate its use with biogenic oils as the obscurants. The research reported in the thesis was directed evaluating the performance of a mini-jet based generator in the laboratory and field with two different obscurant oils, Fog Oil (FO) the oil used by the US Army at present and potential replacement oil …

Polymer Reinforced Aerogels And Composites A. Polyimide Crosslinked Aerogels B. Silica-Polymethylmethacrylate Composites, Vishal U. Patil

Masters Theses

"Crosslinking of aerogels is a promising approach to combine the advantages of inorganic and polymeric materials. In the present study, two types of polyimide-silica hybrid aerogels, APTES-BTDA-MDA (mol ratio: 2:2:1) and APTES-BTDA-MDA (mol ratio: 2:3:2), were synthesized using a sol-gel process followed by heating in order to imidize the polyamic acid that is formed quickly and is covalently bonded to silica. The hybrid aerogels were made using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) endcapped polyamic acids and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) as precursors. Polyimide crosslinked aerogels were characterized by TGA, SEM, FT-IR, BET, solid state NMR and gas pycnometry. These hybrid aerogels exhibit high thermal stability …

A Rapid Method For Determination Of Alpha Hydroxy Acids In Seawater And Biological Fluids At Trace Levels, Ryan Lee Schwiderski

Masters Theses

"Alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) - carboxylic acids with a hydroxyl substitution on the alpha carbon are an important class of molecules. Hydroxy Methyl Thiobutanoic Acid (HMTBA) is an α-hydroxy analog of essential amino acid methionine; it finds extensive use as a feed supplement for avian and bovine species. Efficacy of alpha hydroxy acid uptake is important for nutritional studies and such studies rely on accurate and precise methods for determination of these chemicals in biological samples. Several methods for AHAs determination have been reported, however, the methods are tedious, requiring multiple sample preparation steps. Experiments reported in this thesis were …

Fourier-Transform Microwave Spectroscopy Of Cyclopropylmethylgermane And Van Der Waals Complexes Of Fluorinated Methanes, Michal M. Serafin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Synthetic Studies Towards The Stellettins, Tung Yin Lin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.