PCCP Blog

Scientists from the USA suggest that plant-derived volatile organic compounds are more likely to react with OH at the air-water interface than inside the bulk of water droplets or in the vapour phase. They carried out molecular dynamics simulations of an organic compound in green leaf volatiles, MBO, and OH radicals at air-water interfaces bringing new insight into their absorption behaviours.

Green leaf volatiles are oxygenated hydrocarbons that are emitted by plants, especially under stress conditions such as mechanical damage and local weather changes. MBO is an unsaturated alcohol which is emitted in large quantities by some species of pine and can be oxidised by radicals including OH. MBO and other green leaf volatiles can be a source of secondary organic aerosols in the atmosphere, which play an important role in climate. Currently secondary organic aerosols are not well understood, and are an important factor in the smog-fog-smog cycle.

Read more in this HOT PCCP article:

Molecular simulations of green leaf volatiles and atmospheric oxidants on air/water interfaces
Thilanga P. Liyana-Arachchi, Christopher Stevens, Amie K. Hansel, Franz S. Ehrenhauser, Kalliat T. Valsaraj and Francisco R. Hung
DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44090G

In their PCCP perspective on nanogap-enhanced SERS, Natelson, Li and Herzog discuss the rich and fascinating plasmonic physics at work in these systems.

In their recent PCCP communication, Richard Compton et al. explore gold electrocatalytic activity and report very interesting differences between the macro-and nano-scales.

The researchers from Oxford University, UK, applied the procedure of consecutive electro-oxidation and reduction cycling in sulphuric acid medium to electrodeposited nanoparticles. Whereas this method is commonly used as a cleaning and calibration procedure for gold macro-electrodes, the method was found to have a negative effect on the surface of gold nanoparticles.

It has previously been thought that this surface cleaning method can be effectively applied to gold nanoparticles on the assumption that their behaviour is the same as the bulk behaviour. Compton et al. correctly question this assumption and suggest that changes in the surface morphology and/or composition of the nanoparticles during the cycling treatment may cause the damaging effects on the gold nanoparticle-modified electrode.

Read more detail in this article today:

Surface oxidation of gold nanoparticles supported on a glassy carbon electrode in sulphuric acid medium: contrasts with the behaviour of ‘macro’ gold
Ying Wang, Eduardo Laborda, Alison Crossley and Richard G. Compton
DOI: 10.1039/C3CP44615H

In their recent PCCP Perspective, Maxim Prigozhin and Martin Gruebele from the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, Urbana, USA, provide an excellent overview of the recent developments in the area of protein folding on the microsecond timescale.

Their Perspective compares recent experiments and simulations that have progressed the understanding of complex problems of multiple reaction coordinates, downhill folding, and intricate underlying structures of unfolded or misfolded states.

Advances in computing power and force fields in the late 1990s made it possible to directly compare protein folding experiments and simulations on the microsecond time-scale. Since then, understanding of how small globular proteins fold has made much progress.

With the continuing developments in both computing power and experimental methodology, this article highlights that exciting things in protein science are still to come!

Read this Perspective today:

Microsecond folding experiments and simulations: a match is made
M. B. Prigozhin and M. Gruebele
DOI: 10.1039/C3CP43992E

You may be interested in our themed collection Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry in PCCP.