Mercury based drug in ancient India: The red sulfide of mercury in nanoscale.

Mercury is one of the elements which had attracted the attention of the chemists and physicians of ancient India and China. Among the various metal based drugs which utilize mercury, we became interested in the red sulfide of mercury which is known in ancient Indian literature as rasasindur (alias rasasindura, rasasindoor, rasasinduram, sindur, or sindoor) and is used extensively in various ailments and diseases. Following various physico-chemical characterizations it is concluded that rasasindur is chemically pure α-HgS with Hg:S ratio as 1:1. Analysis of rasasindur vide Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) showed that the particles are in nanoscale. Bio-chemical studies of rasasindur were also demonstrated. It interacts with Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) with an association constant of (9.76 ± 0.56) × 103 M-1 and behaves as a protease inhibitor by inhibiting the proteolysis of BSA by trypsin. It also showed mild antioxidant properties.

Mechanistic details of energy transfer and soft landing in ala2-H(+) collisions with a F-SAM surface.

Previous chemical dynamics simulations (Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, 16, 23769-23778) were analyzed to delineate atomistic details for collision of N-protonated dialanine (ala2-H(+)) with a C8 perfluorinated self-assembled monolayer (F-SAM) surface. Initial collision energies Ei of 5-70 eV and incident angles θi of 0° and 45°, with the surface normal, were considered. Four trajectory types were identified: (1) direct scattering; (2) temporary sticking/physisorption on top of the surface; (3) temporary penetration of the surface with additional physisorption on the surface; and (4) trapping on/in the surface, by physisorption or surface penetration, when the trajectory is terminated. Direct scattering increases from 12 to 100% as Ei is increased from 5 to 70 eV. For the direct scattering at 70 eV, at least one ala2-H(+) heavy atom penetrated the surface for all of the trajectories. For ∼33% of the trajectories all eleven of the ala2-H(+) heavy atoms penetrated the F-SAM at the time of deepest penetration. The importance of trapping decreased with increase in Ei, decreasing from 84 to 0% with Ei increase from 5 to 70 eV at θi = 0°. Somewhat surprisingly, the collisional energy transfers to the F-SAM surface and ala2-H(+) are overall insensitive to the trajectory type. The energy transfer to ala2-H(+) is primarily to vibration, with the transfer to rotation ∼10% or less. Adsorption and then trapping of ala2-H(+) is primarily a multi-step process, and the following five trapping mechanisms were identified: (i) physisorption-penetration-physisorption (phys-pen-phys); (ii) penetration-physisorption-penetration (pen-phys-pen); (iii) penetration-physisorption (pen-phys); (iv) physisorption-penetration (phys-pen); and (v) only physisorption (phys). For Ei = 5 eV, the pen-phys-pen, pen-phys, phys-pen, and phys trapping mechanisms have similar probabilities. For 13.5 eV, the phys-pen mechanism, important at 5 eV, is unimportant. The radius of gyration of ala2-H(+) was calculated once it is trapped on/in the F-SAM surface and trapping decreases the ion's compactness, in part by breaking hydrogen bonds. The ala2-H(+) + F-SAM simulations are compared with the penetration and trapping dynamics found in previous simulations of projectile + organic surface collisions.

Pressureless sintering of dense hydroxyapatite-zirconia composites.

Hydroxyapatite (HA)-TZP (2.5 mol% Y2O3) containing 2, 5, 7.5 and 10 wt% TZP were prepared using calcium nitrate, diammonium hydrogen orthophosphate, zirconium oxychloride and yttrium nitrate. The composite powder was prepared by a reverse strike precipitation method at a pH of 10.5. The precipitates after aging and washing were calcined at 850 degrees C to yield fine crystallites of HA and TZP. TEM study of the calcined powder revealed that while HA particles had both spherical and cuboidal morphology ( approximately 50-100 nm) the TZP particles were only of spherical nature ( approximately 50 nm). X-ray analysis showed that the calcined powder of all the four composition had only HA and t-ZrO2. Uniaxially compacted samples were sintered in air in the temperature range 1,150-1,250 degrees C. High sintered density (>95% of theoretical) was obtained for composites containing 2 and 5 wt% TZP, while it was 92% for 7.5 wt% and 90% for 10 wt% TZP compositions. X-ray analysis of sintered samples shows that with 2 wt% TZP, the retained phases were only HA and t-ZrO2. However, for 5, 7.5 and 10 wt% TZP addition both TCP and CaZrO3 were also observed along with HA and t-ZrO2. Bending strength was measured by three point bending as well by diametral compression test. While in three point bending, the highest strength was 72 MPa, it was 35.5 MPa for diametral compression. The strength shows a decreasing trend at higher ZrO2 content. SEM pictures show near uniform distribution of ZrO2 in HA matrix. The reduction in sintered density at higher ZrO2 content could be related to difference in the sintering behaviour of HA and ZrO2.