In this Quarter, the research was focused continually on the two general tasks: Task 1, molecular organometallic catalysts for hydrogenation and Task 2, organic base catalysts for arene hydrogenation and the hydrotreating of the coal liquids. With regards to Task 1, the [ 1,5-HDRhCl] suffer catalyst system has been investigated in detail to improve its performance. In the presence of CTAB ([CTA...

The influence of solvent on the selectivity of α-olefin in the product hydrocarbon as a function of carbon number over a 20 wt.% Co on SiO2 catalyst under the typical reaction conditions of 513 K, 4.5 MPa and H2/CO = 2 has been investigated. Hydrocarbons with different carbon numbers and molecular structures, including n-hexane, n-octane, n-decane, n-dodecane, n-hexadecane, iso-octane and decah...

Diblock copolymers of polystyrene and polyvinylpyridine, end-attached to mica by the traditional method of selecting one block to be insoluble and the other block to be soluble in the solvent, were studied with surface-force experiments while immersed in trans-decalin, a near-theta solvent for the polystyrene block, with special attention given to the small-amplitude shear viscoelastic response...

A new fuel quality indicator called micropyrolysis index (MPI) is proposed for quantifying sooting tendencies of fuels in research laboratories. The MPI has been designed with the following characteristics: (i) oxygen independence, since sooting tendencies can change dramatically with varying oxygen concentration, (ii) reduced sample volume that can be utilized on a laboratory scale, (iii) impr...

One of the reasons for the huge interest in nanomaterials originated because of the prohibitive price that commercial companies have to pay for introducing new materials into the market. Nanotechnology enables these companies to obtain new properties using old and recognized materials by just reducing their particle size. For these known materials no government approval has to be obtained. Thus...

A polydisperse mixture of hard spheres with a continuous range of sizes is a simple model of many colloidal suspensions. A well-known example [1] is poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) stabilised by a thin polymeric layer of poly(12-hydroxystearic acid) and dispersed in a good solvent such as decalin. The colloidal particles in this suspension interact via a short-range repulsion, which is well re...

Results of the bromination and dehydrobromination of several angular methylated decalindiones are described. The key reaction, base-induced cyclization of the monobromo keto ester (3), and the dibromo ketone (4), leads to the formation of tricyclic systems (6) and (9) respectively.

INTRODUCTION Tetrodotoxin (Figure 1) is a naturally occurring compound isolated from the liver and ovaries of puffer fish. Due to its potent toxicity as a selective blocker of voltage-gated Na ion channels and the high regard for puffer fish as a culinary delicacy, tetrodotoxin has become a molecule of general, as well as scientific, interest. Structural determination revealed a densely functio...

WE are all aware of the use of ultrasound radiation in medicine, where it is being used mostly for diagnosis, and where more recently, focused ultrasound radiation is being used to destroy cancer cells. Less is known of its application in chemistry, despite the fact that it has applications across almost the entire breadth of that field. One of the main advantages in conducting sonochemical exp...