RSC Advances Blog

Salting-out effect on membranes for CO2 separation

05 Sep 2012

Scientists from Singapore have investigated the effect of various salts on facilitated transport membranes for carbon dioxide (CO₂) separation.

The addition of salts to polymeric membranes has proven to be a practical way to improve their permselectivity for gas separation. In this work, Rong Wang and Lizhi Zhang from the Nanyang Technical University looked into whether or not this could be applied to CO₂separation. They found that with the addition of NaF salt, the permeance of N₂ was significantly reduced (by a factor 9.4) – far more so than for CO₂ (reduced by a factor of 1.5).

The authors also introduced polyoxometalates (POMs) as oxysalts into the membranes. Whilst the permeance of CO₂through the membranes was much lower, the permselectivity of CO₂ over N₂was much greater. Due to their unique properties, POMs can be considered as attractive additives to membranes for CO₂ separation.

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Salting-out effect on facilitated transport membranes for CO₂separation: From fluoride salt to polyoxometalates, Lizhi Zhang and Rong Wang, RSC Adv., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20882B

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Organometallics in catalysis: an article collection

29 Aug 2012

By Anna Simpson, Executive Editor.

A collection of high impact articles focusing on organometallic complexes in catalysis, from the RSC’s Catalysis Science & Technology, ChemComm, Chemical Science, Dalton Transactions, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC) and RSC Advances

Perhaps the most well-known applications of organometallics in catalysis are the Ziegler–Natta catalysts which are used to generate polymers, the catalysts are made up of mixtures of transition metal halides and organo-aluminium complexes. Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta were awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery and development of the catalysts, which today are the most commonly used for the manufacture of polythene.

The esteemed history of organometallics are not to be under-estimated and include Grignard’s reagents, the Heck reaction, Schrock catalysts, Grubbs’ catalysts and the Suzuki Coupling to name just a few. Organometallic compounds have revolutionised science and industry and to keep you up to date with the latest break-through research being made across all areas of organometallics in catalysis, we have made this cross-journal article collection free until the 26^th September.

Click here for the full list of free articles

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Extraction of uranium from seawater with ionic liquids

24 Aug 2012

By Anna Simpson, Executive Editor.

A team from Alabama, USA have reported a highly selective extraction of the uranyl ion from aqueous solution via η² coordination using hydrophobic amidoxime-functionalized ionic liquids.

Graphical abstract: Highly selective extraction of the uranyl ion with hydrophobic amidoxime-functionalized ionic liquids via η2 coordination The world’s oceans contain approximately one thousand times the terrestrial supply of uranium, but a selective, cheap and insoluble extractant must be developed to overcome the energetic and economic challenge of the low concentrations in seawater and the variety of interfering ions. In the 1980s, after studying over 200 adsorbents, it was reported that the amidoxime functional group, RC(NH₂)(=NOH), appended to polyacrylonitrile was highly selective towards uranium.

Though well-studied, the coordination of amidoxime to the uranyl ion is not well understood. In this paper, Robin Rogers and his team from the University of Alabama have been able to utilize the functionality of ionic liquids to demonstrate the controversial coordination mechanism for extraction of uranium from seawater by amidoxime extractants. They have demonstrated, through extraction, spectroscopic, and crystallographic studies that hydrophobic, amidoxime-functionalized ionic liquids selectively extract the uranyl ion from aqueous solution via η² coordination.

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Highly selective extraction of the uranyl ion with hydrophobic amidoxime-functionalized ionic liquids via η2 coordination
Patrick S. Barber , Steven P. Kelley and Robin D. Rogers
RSC Adv., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA21344C

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3rd Asian-Pacific Conference on Ionic Liquids and Green Processes

14 Aug 2012

By Mary Badcock, Deputy Editor.

The 3rd Asian-Pacific Conference on Ionic Liquids and Green Processes (APCIL’12) will be held in Beijing, China between the 17th-19th September 2012. The main theme of this conference is ionic liquids for low carbon and sustainable development.

Topics to be covered at APCIL’12 include:

Modeling and Computation
Structure, Spectroscopy and Thermodynamics
New Materials and Compounds
Syntheses and Catalysis
Separation and Transport Processes
Electrochemical and Energy Applications
Sustainable and Environmental Technologies
Process Engineering and Industrial Applications

Invited plenary speakers include Professor Kenneth Seddon (Queen’s University Belfast, UK), Professor Robin D. Rogers (University of Alabama, USA), Professor Douglas McFarlane (University of Monash, Australia) and Professor Buxing Han (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China). For a full list of all invited (plenary and keynote) speakers, click here.

The conference will be held at the Jiuhua Resort Convention Centre in Beijing – more information about the venue and accommodation can be found here.

Register for this conference now!

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Celebrate with RSC Advances

07 Aug 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

Happy 1st Birthday RSC Advances!

RSC Advances is one year old. You can join our first anniversary celebrations at the EuCheMs meeting in Prague, on Tuesday 28th August 2012, at 17.00-18.30. Please contact the RSC Advances Editorial Office if you wish to attend.

In the last 12 months, the journal has published 27 issues containing over 1200 articles across all of the chemical sciences, including: analytical, biological, catalysis, chemical biology and medicinal, energy, environmental, food, inorganic, materials, nanoscience, organic, physical. Our innovative and sophisticated classification system ensures that all the articles are visibible within and/or between one or more of the above twelve subject categories featured on the RSC Advances website. All articles published in 2011 and 2012 are free to download*.

By publishing with RSC Advances, authors are benefiting from:

Rapid publication times
High visibility
Open-access options via RSC Open Science
Free electronic reprints (pdf) of own paper
Free use of colour
No page charges
No page limits

Some of the most cited and/or downloaded articles are:

Electrochemistry of graphene: not such a beneficial electrode material?
Brownson, Dale A. C.; Munro, Lindsey J.; Kampouris, Dimitrios K.; et al.
RSC ADVANCES 2011 Pages: 978-988 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00393c

Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts for multicomponent reactions
Maria José Climent, Avelino Corma and Sara Iborra
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 16-58 DOI: 10.1039/C1RA00807B

CO2 chemistry: task-specific ionic liquids for CO2 capture/activation and subsequent conversion
Yang, Zhen-Zhen; Zhao, Ya-Nan; He, Liang-Nian
RSC ADVANCES 2011 Pages: 545-567 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00307k

Glutathione: mechanism and kinetics of its non-enzymatic defense action against free radicals
Galano, Annia; Raul Alvarez-Idaboy, J.
RSC ADVANCES 2011 Pages: 1763-1771 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00474c

Graphene-based photocatalytic composites
An, Xiaoqiang; Yu, Jimmy C.
RSC ADVANCES 2011 Pages: 1426-1434 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00382h

A novel application of porphyrin nanoparticles as an effective fluorescent assay platform for nucleic acid detection
Author(s): Zhai, Junfeng; Li, Hailong; Sun, Xuping
Source: RSC ADVANCES 2011 Pages: 36-39 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00026h

Recent developments in solvent-free multicomponent reactions: a perfect synergy for eco-compatible organic synthesis
Maya Shankar Singh and Sushobhan Chowdhury
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 4547-4592 DOI: 10.1039/C2RA01056A

Long term cycling studies of electrospun TiO2 nanostructures and their composites with MWCNTs for rechargeable Li-ion batteries
Zhu, Peining; Wu, Yongzhi; Reddy, M. V.; et al.
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 531-537 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00514f

Transition metal complexes with strong absorption of visible light and long-lived triplet excited states: from molecular design to applications
Zhao, Jianzhang; Ji, Shaomin; Wu, Wanhua; et al.
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 1712-1728 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00665g

Cucurbituril chemistry: a tale of supramolecular success
Masson, Eric; Ling, Xiaoxi; Joseph, Roymon; et al.
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 1213-1247 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00768h

Graphene-inorganic nanocomposites
Bai, Song; Shen, Xiaoping
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 64-98 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00260k

Bioaugmentation of an electrochemically active strain to enhance the electron discharge of mixed culture: process evaluation through electro-kinetic analysis
Raghavulu, S. Veer; Babu, P. Suresh; Goud, R. Kannaiah; et al.
RSC ADVANCES 2012 Pages: 677-688 DOI: 10.1039/c1ra00540e

*All articles published in 2011-2012 are free to download after a simple login/registration process.

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Silver is just as toxic to human cells as it is to bacteria

06 Aug 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

Silver is commonly used both in ionic form and in nanoparticulate form as a bactericidal agent. This is generally ascribed to a higher toxicity towards prokaryotic cells than towards mammalian cells.

Scientists in Germany have carried out studies to compare silver ions (such as silver acetate) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-stabilised silver nanoparticles (70 nm). They found that silver’s toxic effect occurs in a similar concentration range for Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, human mesenchymal stem cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (0.5 to 5ppm for silver ions and 12.5 to 50ppm for silver nanoparticles).

For a better comparison, the team cultivated bacteria in Lysogeny broth medium and in Roswell Park Memorial Institute medium/10% fetal calf serum medium, as the state of silver ions and silver nanoparticles may be different owing to the presence of salts and biomolecules such as proteins. They found that the effective toxic concentration of silver towards bacteria and human cells is almost the same.

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The toxic effect of silver ions and silver nanoparticles towards bacteria and human cells occurs in the same concentration range

Christina Greulich, Dieter Braun, Alexander Peetsch, Jörg Diendorf, Bettina Siebers, Matthias Epple and Manfred Köller
RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 6981-6987

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Incredible ionic liquids: an article collection

17 Jul 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

A collection of high quality articles on the topic of ionic liquids from RSC Advances, Catalysis Science & Technology, PCCP and Green Chemistry.

Ionic liquids are pretty self explanatory; they are ionic materials in a liquid state. In a ‘normal’ liquid, interactions are usually governed by Van de Waals or H-bonding forces. In ionic liquids it is ionic bonding interactions which dominate, meaning ionic liquids possess some interesting and unique properties.

The field of ionic liquids grew after Paul Walden’s observations of ethylammonium nitrate in 1914,¹ since then the study and use of ionic liquids has grown phenomenally, with applications in analytics, biology, electrochemistry, physical chemistry, engineering, solvents and catalysis.

The academic and industrial interest in ionic liquids has thrown up some remarkable discoveries, particularly in recent years, so to keep you up to date with latest break-through research in the field we have collected these high quality articles which are free to access!* Click here for the full list of free articles

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RSC Advances is going weekly

11 Jul 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

With over 1000 articles published since the launch of RSC Advances in August 2011, the Journal is going from strength to strength. So much so that, just less than a year after the publication of the first issue, the journal is now published on a weekly basis.

Why have we taken this decision?
With our authors and readers in mind, we wanted to further improve the service we are currently offering. More issues means:

as an author, you will have page numbers assigned to your articles more quickly
more frequent Table of Contents alerts, helping you to keep up-to-date with the latest research

To keep abreast of the latest articles published in RSC Advances, please sign up to receive our content e-mail alerts.

All of our articles published in 2011 and 2012 are FREE to access subject to a simple registration process.

Thank you to all the authors, editors and referees who have given us their support thus far.

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RSC Advances Blog

Salting-out effect on membranes for CO2 separation

Organometallics in catalysis: an article collection

Extraction of uranium from seawater with ionic liquids

Top ten most accessed articles in July

3rd Asian-Pacific Conference on Ionic Liquids and Green Processes

Celebrate with RSC Advances

Silver is just as toxic to human cells as it is to bacteria

Top ten most accessed articles in June

Incredible ionic liquids: an article collection

RSC Advances is going weekly

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