Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes show promising applications as organic-inorganic nanocomposite building blocks that can be used, for example, to enhance the properties of polymeric materials. In this work radial distribution functions, potentials of mean force, and self-diffusion coefficients are obtained from molecular dynamics simulations for polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) ...

In the present paper a simple dynamical model for computing the osmotically driven fluid flow in a variety of complex, non equilibrium situations is derived from first principles. Using the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation, the basic equations describing the process of forward osmosis have been obtained. It has been shown that these equations are very similar to the ones used to model the free...

In this work, the performance of four electrolyte models for prediction the osmotic and activity coefficients of different aqueous salt solutions at 298 K, atmospheric pressure and in a wide range of concentrations are evaluated. In two of these models, (electrolyte Non-Random Two-Liquid e-NRTL and Mean Spherical Approximation-Non-Random Two-Liquid MSA-NRTL), association between ions of opposit...

The feasibility of heat engines, coupled with an internal combustion engine and designed to increase the coefficient of efficiency of hydrocarbon or other chemical fuels, was considered. The prospects of the use of osmotic phenomena in aqueous solutions of thermosensitive polymers in order to improve the operation of heat engines were shown.

Important progress has been made in recent years toward developing a molecular-level understanding of protein phase behavior in terms of the osmotic second virial coefficient, a thermodynamic parameter that characterizes pairwise protein interactions. Yet there has been little practical application of this knowledge to the field of protein crystallization, largely because of the difficult and t...

The interaction between water and the protein of the contractile machinery as well as the tendency of these proteins to form geometrically ordered structures provide a link between water and muscle contraction. Protein osmotic pressure is strictly related to the chemical potential of the contractile proteins, to the stiffness of muscle structures and to the viscosity of the sliding of the thin ...

Freshly isolated frog rod outer segments are sensitive osmometers which retain their photosensitivity; their osmotic behavior reveals essentially the same light-sensitive Na(+) influx observed electrophysiologically in the intact receptor cell. Using appropriate osmotic conditions we have examined freeze-etch replicas of freshly isolated outer segments to identify the membrane which regulates t...