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An oxadiazole derivative with functional groups favouring its adsorption on copper surface, namely 5-(4-Pyridyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol, has been explored as potential inhibitor of copper corrosion in 3.5 wt.% NaCl. Electrochemical evaluation by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, potentiodynamic polarization and SVET reveals inhibition efficiencies exceeding 99%. Surface microscopy inspection and spectroscopic analysis by Raman, SEM-EDX and XPS highlight the formation of a compact barrier film responsible for long-lasting protection, that is mainly composed of the organic molecules. Machine Learning algorithms used in combination with Raman spectroscopy data were used successfully for the first time in corrosion studies to allow discrimination between corroded and inhibitor-protected metal surfaces. Quantum Chemistry calculations in aqueous solution and Molecular Dynamic studies predict a strong interaction between copper and the thiolate group and an extensive coverage of the metal surface, responsible for the excellent protection against corrosion.

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Through this pilot study, the association between Raman spectroscopy and Machine Learning algorithms were used for the first time with the purpose of distillates differentiation with respect to trademark, geographical and botanical origin. Two spectral Raman ranges (region I—200–600 cm−1 and region II—1200–1400 cm−1) appeared to have the higher discrimination potential for the investigated distillates. The proposed approach proved to be a very effective one for trademark fingerprint differentiation, a model accuracy of 95.5% being obtained (only one sample was misclassified). A comparable model accuracy (90.9%) was achieved for the geographical discrimination of the fruit spirits which can be considered as a very good one taking into account that this classification was made inside Transylvania region, among neighbouring areas. Because the trademark fingerprint is the prevailing one, the successfully distillate type differentiation, with respect to the fruit variety, was possible to be made only inside of each producing entity.

This work reports the preparation of water-soluble leucine capped gold nanoparticles by two single-step synthesis methods. The first procedure involves a citrate reduction approach where the citrate is used as reducing agent and leucine as capping/stabilizing agent. Different sizes of gold nanoparticles, citrate reduced and stabilized by leucine, Leu-AuNPs-C, with the mean diameters in the range of 21-56 nm, were obtained by varying the macroscopic parameters such as: concentration of the gold precursor solution, Au (III):citrate molar ratio and leucine pH. In the second procedure, leucine acts both as reducing and stabilizing agent, allowing us to obtain spherical gold nanoparticles, Leu-AuNPs, with a majority of 80 % (with the mean diameter of 63 nm). This proves that leucine is an appropriate reductant for the formation of water-soluble and stable gold nanoparticles colloids. The characterization of the leucine coated gold nanoparticles was carried out by TEM, UV-Vis and FT-IR analysis. The cytotoxic effect of Leu-AuNPs-C and Leu-AuNPs was also evaluated.

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