Study on flow resistance characteristics of SiC foam ceramics.

Porous media combustion has significant advantages of high thermal efficiency and low pollution emissions. However, the flow state in the porous media will affect the reaction rate. In order to increase the rate of chemical reactions, the fluid flow resistance in the porous media must be reduced. The pressure drop test of SiC foam ceramics was carried out. By changing the pore density of the experimental materials, the pressure drop characteristics of SiC foam ceramic are tested and analyzed. Based on the classical Ergun equation, a semi-empirical formula for calculating the pressure drop gradient of SiC foam ceramics with the airflow velocity is proposed. The two constants in the formula are calculated by measurement, and the applicability of the formula is verified. This formula can quickly analyze the pressure drop characteristics of SiC foam ceramic materials. The accurate measurement of pressure drop is helpful to determine the rated pressure of the head of foam ceramic burner and reduce the investment of front-end fans in industrial burners.

Comparative Study on the Dimethyl Ether Combustion Characteristics in Normal and Inverse Diffusion Spherical Flame Geometries.

This paper makes a comparative study on the normal diffusion flame (NDF) and inverse diffusion flame (IDF) characteristics of dimethyl ether (DME) in microgravitational spherical diffusion flame geometry by simulations with detailed fuel chemistry and a transport model. It is found that there always existed two combustion modes (i.e., hot flame and cool flame) in either NDF or IDF condition. The combustion progress of hot flames was controlled by diffusive mixing, while that of cool flames was controlled by low-temperature competing kinetics. The cool-flame structure dynamics were far away from the chemical equilibrium. The low-temperature branching rate of DME was positively dependent on the oxygen level, while its termination rate was enhanced with the increasing temperature. Being rather distinct from the NDF counterpart, DME IDFs had the oxygen-enriched combustion feature in either hot- or cool-flame condition. Furthermore, DME hot-flame extinction was induced by thermal radiative loss, while the cool-flame extinction was induced especially by the decrease of the low-temperature branching rate. Compared with hot NDFs, it would be of less effectiveness to control the hot IDF combustion process by positive measures. However, combustion in the latter configuration was much more stable than the former. In either NDF or IDF geometry, the cool-flame chemistry could help to extend the fuel flammability range considerably, and the two-reaction-zone structure of cool flame was responsible for cool-flame stability. In addition, the IDFs had much better ignition performance than the NDF counterpart.

Effects of H2 Addition on Flammability Dynamics and Extinction Physics of Dimethyl Ether in Laminar Spherical Diffusion Flame.

Flame extinction is one of the most essential critical flame features in combustion because of its relevance to combustion safety, efficiency, and pollutant emissions. In this paper, detailed simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of H2 addition on dimethyl ether spherical diffusion flame in microgravitational condition, in terms of flame structure, flammability, and extinction mechanism. The mole fraction of H2 in the fuel mixture was varied from 0 to 15% by 5% in increment. The chemical explosive mode analysis (CEMA) method was employed to reveal the controlling physicochemical processes in extinction. The results show that the cool flame in microgravitational diffusive geometry had the "double-reaction-zone" structure which consisted of rich and lean reaction segments, while the hot flame featured the "single-reaction-zone" structure. We found that the existence of "double-reaction-zone" was responsible for the stable self-sustained cool flame because the lean zone merged with the rich zone when the cool flame was close to extinction. Additionally, the effect of H2 addition on the cool flame was distinctively different from that of the hot flame. Both hot- and cool-flame flammability limits were significantly extended because of H2 addition but for different reasons. Besides, for each H2 addition case, the chemical explosive mode eigenvalues with the complex number appeared in the near-extinction zone, which implies the oscillation nature of flame in this zone which may induce extinction before the steady-state extinction turning point on the S-curve. Furthermore, as revealed by CEMA analysis, contributions of the most dominated species for extinction changed significantly with varying H2 additions, while contributions of the key reactions for extinction at varying H2 additions were basically identical.

Investigation the Corrosion Inhibition Effect of Itraconazole on Copper in H2SO4 at Different Temperatures: Combining Experimental and Theoretical Studies.

The anti-corrosion inhibition effect of itraconazole on copper (Cu) in 0.5 M H2SO4 is observed with variety of experimental methods, including electrochemical measurement, surface morphology analysis, and theoretical calculations. These experimental results all confirm that itraconazole exhibits excellent anti-corrosion performance in the certain temperatures range (298 K⁻313 K) for copper in sulfuric acid solution. In addition, corresponding adsorption isothermal models were used to fit the adsorption behavior of itraconazole on the copper surface. The results show that the Langmuir adsorption model agrees best with the experimental results. The adsorption of itraconazole on the copper surface belongs to chemical and physical adsorption.

Discovery of Pyrazolo[4,3-c]quinolines Derivatives as Potential Anti-Inflammatory Agents through Inhibiting of NO Production.

The synthesis and anti-inflammatory effects of certain pyrazolo[4,3-c]quinoline derivatives 2a⁻2r are described. The anti-inflammatory activities of these derivatives were evaluated by means of inhibiting nitric oxide (NO) production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 cells. Among them, 3-amino-4-(4-hydroxyphenylamino)-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-c]-quinoline (2i) and 4-(3-amino-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-c]quinolin-4-ylamino)benzoic acid (2m) exhibited significant inhibition of LPS-stimulated NO production with a potency approximately equal to that of the positive control, 1400 W. Important structure features were analyzed by quantitative structure⁻activity relationship (QSAR) analysis to give better insights into the structure determinants for predicting the inhibitory effects on the accumulation of nitric oxide for RAW 264.7 cells in response to LPS. In addition, our results indicated that their anti-inflammatory effects involve the inhibition of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2) protein expression. Further studies on the structural optimization are ongoing.

A combination of experiment and theoretical methods to study the novel and low-cost corrosion inhibitor 1-hydroxy-7-azabenzotriazole for mild steel in 1 M sulfuric acid.

1-Hydroxy-7-azabenzotriazole (HOAT) was explored via experimental and theoretical computation methods as a corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in 1 M sulfuric acid. These data indicate that HOAT has good ability to suppress corrosion of the mild steel, with ideal agreement with between experimental and computational results. Besides, the electrochemical experiments show that HOAT is a mixed-type corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in 1 M H2SO4. Furthermore, HOAT adsorption on the surface of steel conforms to the Langmuir isotherm model. Finally, computational simulation was executed to deeply investigate the mechanism to HOAT inhibition corrosion of steel.

Synthesis and anti-inflammatory evaluations of ß-lapachone derivatives.

ß-Lapachone (ß-LAPA), a natural product from the lapacho tree in South America, is a potential chemotherapeutic agent that exhibit a wide variety of pharmacological effects such as anti-virus, anti-parasitic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory activities. In order to discover novel anti-inflammatory agents, we have synthesized a series of ß-LAPA derivatives for evaluation. Among them, 4-(4-methoxyphenoxy)naphthalene-1,2-dione (6b) was found to be able to inhibit NO and TNF-α released in LPS-induced Raw 264.7 cells. Inhibition of iNOS and COX-2 was also observed in compound 6b treated cells. Mechanism studies indicated that 6b exhibited anti-inflammatory properties by suppressing the release of pro-inflammatory factors through down-regulating NF-κB activation. In addition, it suppressed NF-κB translocation by inhibiting the phosphorylation of p38 kinase. Our results also indicate that the inhibitory effect of 6b on LPS-stimulated inflammatory mediator production in Raw 264.7 cell is associated with the suppression of the NF-κB and MAPK signaling pathways. A low cytotoxicity (IC(50) = 31.70 µM) and the potent anti-inflammatory activity exhibited by compound 6b make this compound a potential lead for developing new anti-inflammatory agents. Further structural optimization of compound 6b is on-going.

Identification of furo[3', 2':3,4]naphtho[1,2-d]imidazole derivatives as orally active and selective inhibitors of microsomal prostaglandin E(2) synthase-1 (mPGES-1).

This study describes the synthesis and anti-inflammatory effects of furo[3', 2':3,4]naphtho[1,2-d] imidazole derivatives. Among these furo[3', 2':3,4]naphtho[1,2-d]imidazole derivatives, 2-(4-methoxyphenyl)furo [3', 2':3,4]naphtho[1,2-d]imidazole (12) exhibited a strong inhibitory activity against LPS-induced PGE(2) production, with an IC(50) value of 47 nM. Compound 12 is then further examined for its inhibitory effects in the protein expression of COX-2 and microsomal prostaglandin E(2) synthase-1 (mPGES-1) in Raw 264.7 cells. Our results indicate that compound 12 was capable against inhibiting LPS-induced mPGES-1 protein expression at a concentration of 1.0 µM and no inhibitory effect in COX-2 expression. The sepsis-induced PGE(2) production in rat serum decreased ~250% by the pretreatment of 12 at 10 mg/kg. These results are especially important since compound 12 exhibited good oral bioavailability (72%) and was not cytotoxic at a concentration of 10.0 µM. Therefore, compound 12 is a highly selective mPGES-1 inhibitor that can serve as a lead for the development of novel oral anti-inflammatory drug candidates.

Synthesis and antiproliferative evaluation of 2,3-diarylquinoline derivatives.

A number of 2,3-diarylquinoline derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for antiproliferative activities against the growth of six cancer cell lines including human hepatocellular carcinoma (Hep G2 and Hep 3B), non-small cell lung cancer (A549 and H1299), and breast cancer (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) cell lines. The preliminary results indicated that 6-fluoro-2,3-bis{4-[2-(piperidin-1-yl)ethoxy]phenyl}quinoline (16b) was one of the most active compounds against the growth of Hep 3B, H1299, and MDA-MB-231 with a GI(50) value of 0.71, 1.46, and 0.72 µM respectively which was more active than tamoxifen. Further investigations have shown that 16b induced cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase followed by DNA fragmentation via an increase in the protein expression of Bad, Bax and decrease in Bcl-2, and PARP which consequently cause cell death.

Synthesis and antiproliferative evaluation of certain iminonaphtho[2,3-b]furan derivatives.

Certain iminonaphtho[2,3-b]furan derivatives were synthesized from their respective carbonyl precursors in the regiospecific and the stereospecific manners. These compounds were evaluated for their antiproliferative effects against four human carcinoma cells (MCF7, NCI-H460, SF-268, and K562) and the normal fibroblast cell line (Detroit 551). Among them, (Z)-4-(hydroxyimino)naphtho[2,3-b]furan-9(4H)-one (8) and (Z)-4-methoxy-iminonaphtho[2,3-b]furan-9(4H)-one (9) exhibited GI(50) values of 0.82 and 0.60 microM, respectively, against the growth of K562 cells and were inactive against the normal fibroblast Detroit 551. The selectivity index (SI) on K562 cell for 8 and 9 was >121.95 and >166.67, respectively, which is comparable to daunorubicin (SI=239) and is more favorable than camptothecin (SI=16.5). The cell cycle analysis on K562 indicated that these compounds arrest the cell cycle at the G2/M phase. The morphological assessment and DNA fragmentation analysis indicated that 9-induced cell apoptosis in K562 cells. The apoptotic induction may through caspase-3 activity and cleavage of PARP.