RSC Advances Blog

Incredible ionic liquids: an article collection

17 Jul 2012

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

Comments Off on Incredible ionic liquids: an article collection

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.

Comments Off on RSC Advances is going weekly

Detecting cocaine with the naked eye

26 Jun 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

Schematic drawings of (A) different designs of assay probes for cocaine detection: (left) monolithic aptamer (MA), (middle) double-fragment aptamer (DFA), and (right) triple-fragment aptamer (TFA); (B) gold nanoparticle based optical cocaine detection using TFA. The same oligonucletide sequences were drawn in the same colors.

Chinese scientists have developed a colorimetric sensor consisting of a triple-fragment aptamer (TFA) that is able to assemble in the presence of cocaine. Xinhui Lou and Yueying Liu and co-workers at the Capital Normal University in Beijing, showed that the aptasensor was specific for cocaine and worked equally well in complex urine samples containing 100 μM cocaine or filtered serum containing cocaine.

This new type of aptamer probe design showed a gradual colour change from red to blue when the concentrations of cocaine was increased from 0 to 200 μM . “TFA broadens the repertoire of probe designs and provides good opportunities for the future development of novel detection approaches and for nanostructure constructions,” says Liu et al.

Even though the assays need to be conducted at low temperature (4 °C), the authors believe that the detection method can be further improved by increasing the stem length.

Login to download the full paper for free:

Highly specific triple-fragment aptamer for optical detection of cocaine
Ruxing Zou , Xinhui Lou , Huichao Ou , Ying Zhang , Wenjie Wang , Min Yuan , Ming Guan , Zhaofeng Luo and Yueying Liu

RSC Adv., 2012,2, 4636-4638
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20307C

Comments Off on Detecting cocaine with the naked eye

Mesoscopic Gold Bowls

15 Jun 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

SEM image of an ordered array of MnSO4 bowls obtained after calcination of the MnSO4–PVP composite film at 550 °C for 5 h.

Scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, in Bangalore, India, report a simple method for the “spontaneous formation of ordered, mesoscale structures made up of inorganic salt bowls”. These tiny bowls are said to be generating a lot of interest due to their unique application as ‘containers’ to hold ultra-low volumes.

The team led by Eswaramoorthy showed that when manganese sulfate is heated with the water soluble polymer PVP, the mix spontaneously forms arrays of tiny water-soluble bowls of the manganese sulfate salt. The beautiful structures are the result of the salt crystallising around the PVP as it bubbles and evaporates. The salt bowl were coated in gold, before the salt is washed away leaving some of the tiniest gold bowls ever made.

Scheme showing formation process of different MnSO4 morphologies through gas-bubble template method, Scheme A: Bowls, Scheme B: Ball-in-bowl shaped structures, Scheme C: Ring shaped structures (for convenience, all morphologies are shown to be evolved from the same film).

To read more about this paper, please login and download the paper for free

Shaping up: spontaneous formation of ordered mesoscopic salt bowls

Katla Sai Krishna, Bosukonda V. V. S. Pavan Kumar and Muthusamy Eswaramoorthy
RSC Adv., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20596C, Communication

Comments Off on Mesoscopic Gold Bowls

RSC Advances is now indexed in Scopus

14 May 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

We are very pleased to announce that RSC Advances is now fully indexed in Scopus.

SciVerse Scopus is the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. By featuring in Scopus, RSC Advances articles become even more discoverable and visible to scientists. All our 2011-2012 content are completely free to access subject to a simple registration process.

According to Scopus, RSC Advances has published over 700 articles since our launch in August 2011. Why not join your peers and take this opportunity to submit your work today!

PS: We are also indexed in other major databases such as Thomson Reuters SCI-expanded databases including ISI Web of Science and CAS.

Comments Off on RSC Advances is now indexed in Scopus

Cheap gum removes oil from wastewater

10 May 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

‘Flaxseed gum beads can be used to remove oil from wastewater systems,’ claim Chinese scientists.
Flaxseed gum is a mixture of proteins and polysaccharides such as arabinose, rhamnose, fucose, xylose and others. Yu-Jie Fu and co-workers, at the Ministry of Education, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China, explain that the flaxseed gum beads can remove 0.55 g of oil per gram of beads. They showed that flaxseed gum beads have better adsorption capacities than activated carbon.

The flaxseed gum content in the immobilised beads was 30 mg per gram and oil removal was carried out with 2mm diameter beads at room temperature and pH of 7.5.

When investigating the removal of 1.0 kg of oil from oil–water emulsions by immobilized flaxseed gum beads v/s activated carbon. 1.82kg of flaxseed gum beads was required to remove 1.0kg of oil, costing only 2.67 RMB (chinese currency) compared to 2.17 kg of powdered activated carbon costing 43.40 RMB. Furthermore, the flaxseed gum beads is resuable allowing lower processing costs than traditional oil removal methods. Flaxseed gum bead technology holds great promise as an alternative environmentally-friendly method for oil removal from wastewater.

Read the full paper published in RSC Advances for free:

Oil removal from oily water systems using immobilized flaxseed gum gel beads
Jing-jing Long, Yuan-gang Zu, Yu-jie Fu, Meng Luo, Pan-song Mu, Chun-jian Zhao, Chun-ying Li, Wei Wang and Ji Li
RSC Adv., 2012, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20375H, Paper

Comments Off on Cheap gum removes oil from wastewater

RSC Advances at Eurasia 2012

30 Apr 2012

By Kathleen Too, Deputy Editor.

Dr Claudio Santi (left), poster prize winner, University of Perugia, Italy with Professor George Varvounis (right), Vice Chairman of Eurasia 2012

RSC Advances was proud to sponsor the poster prize at the recent Eurasia conference in Corfu, Greece. Held every 2 years since 1988, the meeting was the 12th of its kind and hosted for the first time in Europe. About 450 delegates from over 55 countries engaged in discussions about their latest findings on the chemical sciences. The meeting kicked off with a plenary lecture from the Nobel laureate, Professor Akira Suzuki, providing updates on the metal-catalysed Suzuki reaction.

The conference then proceeded with 6 daily parallel sessions covering the following topics:

Bioinorganic Chemistry
Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Diagnostics
Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drugs Design
Environmental and Green Chemistry
Physical Chemistry and Spectroscopy
Theoretical and Computational Chemistry
Organometallic Chemistry and Catalysis
Coordination Chemistry and Inorganic Polymers
Analytical and Solution Chemistry
Organic Synthesis and Natural Products
Food Chemistry
Supramolecular Chemistry and Nanomaterials
Polymer Science
Chemical Education

The delegates were graced with over 200 posters on the above subjects. The poster winner in the Environmental and Green Chemistry category went to Dr Claudio Santi, University of Perugia, Italy. Claudio presented his work on “PhSeZn-Halides:Nucleophilic Reagents in on Water Conditions”. On behalf of RSC Advances, Professor George Varvounis, University of Ioannina, Greece, Vice Chairman of Eurasia 2012, presented Claudio with an RSC Book on Molecular Solar Fuels and a certificate (see photo above). Many congratulations to the winner!

Comments Off on RSC Advances at Eurasia 2012

RSC Advances Blog

Incredible ionic liquids: an article collection

RSC Advances is going weekly

Detecting cocaine with the naked eye

Top ten most accessed articles in May

Mesoscopic Gold Bowls

Top ten most accessed articles in April

RSC Advances is now indexed in Scopus

Cheap gum removes oil from wastewater

RSC Advances at Eurasia 2012

Top ten most accessed articles in March

Links

Categories

Archives

Meta