Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Stability And Precipitation Of Diverse Nanoparticles, Chintal Desai

Dissertations

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing industry that is exploiting the novel characteristics of materials manufactured at the nanoscale. Carbon based nanomaterials such as Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) and Detonation Nanodiamond (DND) possess unique properties and find a wide range of industrial applications. With the advent of mass production of such materials, there is a possibility of contamination of water resources. Depending on the surface properties and structures, they might aggregate and settle down, or be dispersed and transported by the water. Therefore, there is a need to develop an understanding of the fate of such materials in aqueous media. The understanding …

Application Of Hydrogen Peroxide As Brown Tide Bloom Control Agent, Varunpreet Randhawa

Dissertations

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are growing problem across the globe. One such HAB that’s recurring in the coastal waters of New York and New Jersey since mid-1980s, and has been reported in other countries recently, is brown tide bloom. The causal organism is a minute pel agophyte (cell diameter ~- 2µ m) Aureococcus anophagefferens. The brown tide bloom has been responsible for the severe ecological damage and economic loss (e.g. shellfishery) in the affected areas. This research focuses on finding a method to control brown tide blooms and explores the potential of natural chemical biocide hydrogen peroxide (H_{2 …}

Study Of Elementary Reactions Of Combustion Importance At Elevated Temperatures And Pressures, Manuvesh Sangwan

Dissertations

The aim of the present study is to study the kinetics of elementary reactions of combustion importance at elevated temperatures and pressures. High pressure is encountered in many systems of practical importance such as internal combustion engines and rocket combustion chambers. Several reactions of OH, CH₃ and HO₂ radicals are studied. The pressure range covered in this study is 1 - 100 bar and the temperature range is 292 - 834 K. The experimental approach used is laser photolysis coupled to UV transient absorption spectroscopy. A unique high pressure heatable flow reactor is employed and a novel approach …

Escherichia Coli 2-Oxoglutarate Dehydrogenase Multienzyme Complex: E1 And E2 Substrate Specificty, E1 Carboligase Activity, And E2 Interchain Succinyl Transfer, Da Jeong Shim

Dissertations

Escherichia coli (E. coli) 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase multienzyme complex (OGDHc) contains three components: a thiamin di phosphate (ThD P) dependent 2-oxogl utarate dehydrogenase (E1 o), a di hydrol i poylsucci nyl transferase (E2o), and a di hydrol i poyl dehydrogenase (E3). The first two components carry out the principal reactions for succinyl CoA formation while the third one reoxidizes dihydrolipoamide to lipoamide. This mechanism is similar to other 2-oxoacid dehydrogenase complexes, including pyruvate dehydrogenases (PDHc) and branched-chain dehydrogenases.

E1o of the E. coli OGDHc was engineered to accept unnatural substrates. The natural substrate for E1 o is 2-oxogl utarate …

Computational Thermochemistry Of Hydrocarbons, Oxygenates, Cyclic Alkanes, And Furans, Jason Michael Hudzik

Dissertations

Fundamental thermochemical properties including enthalpies (ΔH°_{f 298}), entropies (S° (T)), heat capacities (C_p(T)), and bond dissociation energies (BDEs) for several common and complex hydrocarbon fuel species are determined using computational chemical methods. ΔH° _{f 298} values are calculated using work reactions with the B3LY P (6-31 G(d,p) and 6-311G(2d,2p) basis sets), CBS-QB3, and G3MP2B3 calculation methods. Structures, moments of inertia, vibrational frequencies, and internal rotor potentials are calculated for contributions to entropies and heat capacities. Kinetic rate parameters are calculated for hydrogen abstraction and chemical activation reactions.

Recommended ΔH° …

Synthesis And Characterization Of New Light Emitting Probes For Sensitive Detection Of Bio-Molecules And Live Cells, Shyamala Pravin Pillai

Dissertations

A variety of contemporary analytical platforms in technical and biological applications take advantage of labeling the objects of interest with fluorescent or luminescent tracers. Luminescent tracers take advantage of the unique property of some lanthanide metals to absorb and emit light. Long lifetime of lanthanide emission allows temporal gating of the signal, which avoids the short-lived background of interfering sample components. This property in combination with large Stokes shift contributes to extreme sensitivity of detection (ca. 10^-13-10^-14 M), which makes lanthanide-based probes suitable for large variety of challenging tasks ( e.g., intracellular detection of single DNA/RNA, or …

Development Of Luminescent Probes For Ultrasensitive Detection Of Biopolymers, Their Complexes, And Living Cells, Laura A. Wirpsza

Dissertations

New luminescent probes with enhanced brightness convenient for bioconjugation were synthesized and tested in major biological applications including the detection of nucleic acids and living cells. The first project used luminescent lanthanide ion probes that take advantage of hyper-sensitive acquisition of their long-lived emission signal in time- resolved mode, which avoids short-lived background fluorescence of the medium. Two model carbostyril fluorophores (cs 124-CH₃ and cs 124-CF₃) were modified by inclusion of two spacers (diamino and bi-phenyl) for the attachment of amine and thiol reactive cross-linking groups. In this project, time-resolved measurements are presented for spectroscopy and microscopy. …