Boron deficiency symptoms point to a role for boron in plant membranes, but the molecular partners interacting with boron have not yet been identified. The objective of the present study was to isolate and identify membrane-associated proteins with an ability to interact with boron. Boron-interacting proteins were isolated from root microsomal preparations of arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ...

The removal of boron from aqueous solution by direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) was studied with self-prepared polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber membranes in the present work. The effect of pH, boron concentration, temperature and salt concentration of the feed solution on the boron rejection was investigated. The experimental results indicated that boron rejection was less ...

Recently, a proliferation of athletic supplements has been marketed touting boron as an ergogenic aid capable of increasing testosterone. The effect of boron supplementation was investigated in male bodybuilders. Ten male bodybuilders (aged 20 to 26) were given a 2.5-mg boron supplement, while nine male bodybuilders (aged 21 to 27) were given a placebo for 7 weeks. Plasma total and free testost...

Intact roots of boron-sufficient squash (Cucurbita pepo L.) plants, plants entering boron deficiency, and plants recovering from boron deficiency were exposed to tritiated thymidine at the end of the treatment period to label the replicating DNA of root tip cells. Using histological sections, autoradiographs of intact root meristems were prepared. The labeling pattern in +B root tips revealed t...

Co-precipitation and absorption methods were investigated for removal of boron from produced water, which is groundwater brought to the surface during oil and natural gas extraction. Boron can be toxic to many crops and often needs to be controlled to low levels in irrigation water. The present research focused on synthetic reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate modeled on concentrate expected from a...

In this study, 3-D finite element modeling of precision hard turning has been used to investigate the effects of cutting edge microgeometry on tool forces, temperatures and stresses in machining of AISI H13 steel using polycrystalline cubic boron nitrite (PCBN) inserts with two distinct edge preparations. Hard turning experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of cutting edge geometr...

Ultratrace elements are those elements with an estimated dietary requirement usually less than 1 mcg/g and often less than 50 ng/g diet for laboratory animals. Elements suggested to fit in the ultratrace category include arsenic, boron, bromine, cadmium, chromium, fluorine, lead, lithium, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, silicon, tin and vanadium. Since the first meeting in 1986 of the Internation...

A systematic study was carried out to dope single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) bundles with varying amounts of boron using the pulsed laser vaporization technique. Targets containing boron concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 10at.% boron were prepared by mixing elemental boron with carbon paste and the Co/Ni catalysts. The laser-generated products that were obtained from these targets were char...

We have synthesized boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) in an arc in presence of boron and nitrogen species only, without transition metals. We find that BNNTs are often attached to pure boron nanoparticles, suggesting that root-growth is a likely mechanism for their formation. To gain further insight into this process we have studied key mechanisms for root growth of BNNTs on the surface of a liqu...

The all-boron fullerenes B40(-1) and B39(-1) discovered in recent experiments are characterized and revealed using photoelectron spectroscopy. Except for the photoelectron spectroscopy, one may identify such boron clusters with other spectroscopic techniques, such as infrared spectra and Raman spectra. Insight into the spectral properties of boron clusters is important to understand the boron c...