A New Conducting Copolymer Bearing Electro-Active Nitroxide Groups as Organic Electrode Materials for Batteries.

To reduce the amount of conducting additives generally required for polynitroxide-based electrodes, a stable radical (TEMPO) is combined with a conductive copolymer backbone consisting of 2,7-bisthiophene carbazole (2,7-BTC), which is characterized by a high intrinsic electronic conductivity. This work deals with the synthesis of this new polymer functionalized by a redox nitroxide. Fine structural characterization using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) techniques established that: 1) the nitroxide radicals are properly attached to the radical chain (continuous wave EPR) and 2) the polymer chain has very rigid conformations leading to a set of well-defined distances between first neighboring pairs of nitroxides (pulsed EPR). The redox group combined with the electroactive polymer showed not only a very high electrochemical reversibility but also a perfect match of redox potentials between the de-/doping reaction of the bisthiophene carbazole backbone and the redox activity of the nitroxide radical. This new organic electrode shows a stable capacity (about 60 mAh g-1 ) and enables a strong reduction in the amount of carbon additive due to the conducting-polymer skeleton.

First step towards a fast analytical method for the determination of Biochemical Methane Potential of solid wastes by near infrared spectroscopy.

Methane can be produced by anaerobic digestion. The Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) test is widely applied to determine the anaerobic biodegradability of wastes. It is based on a fermentation process, which is time consuming, about 30 days. This study investigates the use of near infrared spectroscopy to predict the Biochemical Methane Potential value of municipal solid waste. Near infrared spectroscopy has the advantage to be very fast and applicable to solid waste with a light sample preparation. Satisfying results were obtained: R(2)=0.76; Standard Error of Prediction=28 ml CH(4) g(-1) VS, that compare very favourably with reported results for other more expensive and more time-consuming methods. To our knowledge, it is the first time near infrared spectroscopy is used to predict the Biochemical Methane Potential value. Using near infrared spectroscopy for waste management would thus lead to a real benefit from an industrial point of view.

Photochemistry of 2,6-diisopropylphenol (propofol).

The photochemistry of the anaesthetic agent propofol (PPF) was investigated in three different solvents of quite different polarity (cyclohexane, methanol and phosphate buffer pH 7) by means of nanosecond laser flash photolysis and absorption spectroscopy. GC-MS spectrometry measurements of PPF in cyclohexane have revealed the formation of two major products upon low intensity UV continuous irradiation of PPF in aerated solution: the diphenol derivative of PPF and 2,6-diisopropyl-p-benzoquinone (PPFQ). Only the diphenol compound was obtained in anaerobic solution. PPF phenoxyl radical (PPF ) generation has been assigned as the original step leading to the formation of both the diphenol compound and PPFQ in cyclohexane as revealed by laser flash photolysis at 266 nm and by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy as well. Investigation of PPF by nanosecond flash photolysis at 266 nm in the other solvents revealed the occurrence of different photochemical processes depending on the nature and the polarity of the solvent. A reaction scheme is proposed in order to discuss the mechanism of reaction of PPF in all media.

MADSTRESS: a linear approach for evaluating scattering and absorption coefficients of samples measured using time-resolved spectroscopy in reflection.

Time-resolved spectroscopy is a powerful technique permitting the separation of the scattering properties from the chemical absorption properties of a sample. The reduced scattering coefficient and the absorption coefficient are usually obtained by fitting diffusion or Monte Carlo models to the measured data using numerical optimization techniques. However, these methods do not take the spectral dimension of the data into account during the evaluation procedure, but evaluate each wavelength separately. A procedure involving multivariate methods may seem more appealing for people used to handling conventional near-infrared data. In this study we present a new method for processing TRS spectra in order to compute the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients. This approach, MADSTRESS, is based on linear regression and a two-dimensional (2D) interpolation procedure. The method has allowed us to calculate absorption and scattering coefficients of apples and fructose powder. The accuracy of the method was good enough to provide the identification of fructose absorption peaks in apple absorption spectra and the construction of a calibration model predicting the sugar content of apples.

An automated test for measuring polymer biodegradation.

The biodegradability of polymer materials as evaluated by the modified Sturm test is labor-intensive, cumbersome and costly and also tends to cumulate errors. An automated system for the measurement of carbon dioxide would overcome many of these disadvantages. We describe here a method in which CO2 was determined by IR spectroscopy. We compared the results with those from trapping CO2 in a solution of barium hydroxide (Ba(OH)2) followed by manual titration. The automated system was more reproducible, less costly and more compact. The automated system could also be employed to measure the biodegradability of other substances such as oils and detergents.

Production of polyclonal antibodies towards the immunodetection of insecticide phosalone.

Hapten synthesis for the production of specific insecticide phosalone polyclonal antibodies was carried out starting from an intermediate of the phosalone synthesis, 6-chloro-2-benzoxazolone 1. Two haptens containing different spacers have been prepared: N-5-carboxypentyl-6-chloro-2-benzoxazolone 7 and N-(2-oxo-3-aza-5-carboxypentyl)-6-chloro-2-benzoxazolone 12. Each of these two haptens conjugated to bovine serum albumine (BSA) was used to immunize four rabbits. Immunoassays of phosalone were performed with ELISA using solid-phase bound hapten thyroglobulin conjugate and horseradish peroxidase labelled goat antirabbit IgG. The more sensitive response was observed when the antiserum obtained from the rabbit immunized with the hapten-BSA conjugate containing the N-2-oxo-3-aza-5-carboxypentyl spacer was in competition with the same hapten coupled to thyroglobulin. An identical response was obtained under the same conditions when using benzoxazolone instead of phosalone as competitor, showing a good recognition of the specific aromatic part of the organophosphate insecticide phosalone. Reduction of coating conjugate concentration (from 2 to 0.05 micrograms/well) and also the use of heterologous coating protein instead of homologous did improve the sensitivity, resulting in a concentration of phosalone required to inhibit binding by 50% of 2 mg/l and a detection limit of 0.02 mg/l.