Vibrational heat capacity of silver carp collagen.

The study of the experimental and calculated heat capacity, Cp of fish collagen (silver carp) with contents of several additive components was presented. The experimental low-temperature heat capacity was measured in the temperature range of 1.85 to 302.8 K using a Quantum Design Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) and the higher temperature Cp from 223.15 K to 382.15 K by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) method. For an interpretation of the experimental, low-temperature data, the vibrational heat capacity of the pure silver carp collagen was calculated based on the contribution of a sum of the vibrational heat capacity of 4248 amino acids. The vibrational heat capacity for each amino acids was taken from Advanced Thermal Analysis System (ATHAS) Data Bank for individual poly (amino acid) residues based on their group and skeletal vibrational spectra. Comparing of the experimental heat capacity of the collagen with additive components and the calculated vibrational heat capacity of the pure silver carp collagen shows that the differences range from around 10% at 100 K to 14% at 300 K temperature. Such thermal analysis can provide information about the contribution to Cp of unknown components or impurities in the investigated system.

Determination of the magnetic contribution to the heat capacity of cobalt oxide nanoparticles and the thermodynamic properties of the hydration layers.

We present low temperature (11 K) inelastic neutron scattering (INS) data on four hydrated nanoparticle systems: 10 nm CoO·0.10H(2)O (1), 16 nm Co(3)O(4)·0.40H(2)O (2), 25 nm Co(3)O(4)·0.30H(2)O (3) and 40 nm Co(3)O(4)·0.026H(2)O (4). The vibrational densities of states were obtained for all samples and from these the isochoric heat capacity and vibrational energy for the hydration layers confined to the surfaces of these nanoparticle systems have been elucidated. The results show that water on the surface of CoO nanoparticles is more tightly bound than water confined to the surface of Co(3)O(4), and this is reflected in the reduced heat capacity and vibrational entropy for water on CoO relative to water on Co(3)O(4) nanoparticles. This supports the trend, seen previously, for water to be more tightly bound in materials with higher surface energies. The INS spectra for the antiferromagnetic Co(3)O(4) particles (2-4) also show sharp and intense magnetic excitation peaks at 5 meV, and from this the magnetic contribution to the heat capacity of Co(3)O(4) nanoparticles has been calculated; this represents the first example of use of INS data for determining the magnetic contribution to the heat capacity of any magnetic nanoparticle system.

Pinning frequencies of the collective modes in alpha-uranium.

Uranium is the only known element that features a charge-density wave (CDW) and superconductivity. We report a comparison of the specific heat of single-crystal and polycrystalline alpha-uranium. In the single crystal we find excess contributions to the heat capacity at 41 K, 38 K, and 23 K, with a Debye temperature ThetaD = 265 K. In the polycrystalline sample the heat capacity curve is thermally broadened (ThetaD = 184 K), but no excess heat capacity was observed. The excess heat capacity Cphi (taken as the difference between the single-crystal and polycrystal heat capacities) is well described in terms of collective-mode excitations above their respective pinning frequencies. This attribution is represented by a modified Debye spectrum with two cutoff frequencies, a pinning frequency V0 for the pinned CDW (due to grain boundaries in the polycrystal), and a normal Debye acoustic frequency occurring in the single crystal.