Strategic Electrochemical Determination of Nitrate over Polyaniline/Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes-Gum Arabic Architecture.

Significant agricultural and industrial activities necessitate the regular monitoring of nitrate (NO3-) ions levels in feed and groundwater. The current comparative study discloses an innovative user-friendly electrochemical approach for the determination of NO3- over polyaniline (PAni)-based modified electrodes. The electrochemical sensors concocted with PAni, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT), and gum arabic (GA). The unique electrode material GA@PAni-CNT was synthesized by facile one-pot catalytic polymerization of aniline (Ani) with FeCl3/H2O2 in the presence of CNT and GA as integral components. As revealed by cyclic voltammetry (CV), the anchoring/retention of NO3- followed by reduction is proposed to occur when a GA@PAni-CNT electrode is immersed in phosphate buffer electrolyte containing NO3- that eventually results in a significantly higher redox activity of the GA@PAni-CNT electrode upon potential scan. The mechanism of NO3- anchoring may be associated with the non-redox transition of leucomeraldine salt (LS) into emeraldine salt (ES) and the generation of nitrite (NO2-) ions. As a result, the oxidation current produced by CV for redox transition of ES ↔ pernigraniline (PN) was ~9 times of that obtained with GA@PAni-CNT electrode and phosphate buffer electrolyte, thus achieving indirect NO3- voltammetric determination of the GA@PAni-CNT electrode. The prepared GA@PAni-CNT electrode displayed a higher charge transfer ability as compared to that of PAni-CNT and PAni electrodes. The optimum square wave voltammetric (SWV) response resulted in two linear concentration ranges of 1-10 (R2 = 0.9995) and 15-50 µM (R2 = 0.9988) with a detection limit of 0.42 µM, which is significantly lower. The GA@PAni-CNT electrode demonstrated the best detection, sensitivity, and performance among the investigated electrodes for indirect voltammetric determination of NO3- that portrayed the possibility of utilizing GA-stabilized PAni and CNT nanocomposite materials in additional electrochemical sensing applications.

Potent anti-platelet constituents from Centaurea iberica.

New naturally occurring nitrogenous compounds 1 and 2, along with a new dimeric lignan glucoside 3, have been isolated from the ethyl acetate soluble fraction of Centaurea iberica. Their structures have been elucidated through spectroscopic techniques. All the isolated compounds showed significant platelet aggregation inhibition.

Conferin, potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory isoflavone from Caragana conferta Benth.

Conferin (1), a new isoflavone, has been isolated from the ethyl acetate soluble fraction of Caragana conferta Benth. along with seven known compounds, namely biochanin A (2), p-hydroxybenzoic acid (3), 3,5-dimethoxybenzoic acid (4), ursolic acid (5), erythrodiol (6), pinoresinol (7), and syringresinol (8), reported for the first time from this species. The structure of the new isoflavone was deduced on the basis of spectroscopic studies. Compounds 1 and 2 were investigated for biological activities and showed significant anti-inflammatory activity in carrageenan induced paw edema of rats. Evaluation of antioxidant activity by the radical scavenging method indicated that compound 1 is a potent antioxidant while 2 is moderately active. It was also shown that the reducing capability of compound 2 was remarkably increased in a concentration dependent manner as compared to 1. Compound 1 showed moderate inhibitory activity against the enzyme lipoxygenase, while 2 showed weak activity.