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The immune-response of macrophages is an important area of investigation since it represents the major pathway by which early-stage defense barriers are established in skin, lungs, and mucosal systems to counteract foreign objects. In this study, we have examined the size-dependent inflammatory and toxicological effects of nanostructured silver particles (nano-Ag) on macrophage immune cells.

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Large heat duty for amine regeneration in absorptionbased CO 2 capture is one of the major drawbacks of this process. Along with a highly endothermic carbamate breakdown reaction in the stripper, the difficulty of proton transfer from protonated amines to water in the amine regeneration process is also considered a basic reason for high heat duty. Transition metal oxide catalysts can play a vital role in decreasing the required thermal energy for amine regeneration in the stripper by providing Bronsted acids and Lewis acids that would help break down the carbamate by direct attack. MEA saturated with CO 2 at 35 °C, with initial loading of 0.56 mole CO 2 /mole amine, was used in this study. The performance of five different transition metal oxide catalysts, V 2 O 5 , MoO 3 , WO 3 , TiO 2 , and Cr 2 O 3 , was studied separately to investigate the effects of these catalysts on amine regeneration in the temperature range of 35−86 °C. It has been observed that MoO 3 performance is much better as it regenerated almost double of the MEA solvent than noncatalytic amine regeneration systems, whereas other catalysts also showed considerable differences in amine regeneration in this temperature range. The amine regeneration performance trend was MoO 3 > V 2 O 5 > Cr 2 O 3 > TiO 2 > WO 3 > blank test. The application of this work would mean that metal oxide catalysts could be used in strippers for a faster CO 2 desorption rate at lower temperature, which would cause a significant reduction of the heat duty.

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The present paper deals with the transport properties of membranes made of hydrophilic gels containing ionogenic groups. Introduction of ionogenic groups into a gel based on 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate will affect the permeability of the investigated membranes for sodium chloride by an order or more. Dependences of the permeability on the content of ionogenic groups, three‐dimensional network density, and pH were established. The permeability for NaCl was compared for that for bivalent salt (MgSO4). It is shown, on the basis of independently determined distribution coefficients, that an increase in the permeability of ampholytic membranes in comparison with the neutral ones is primarily due to an increase in the diffusivity of the salt in the membranes with modified structure. It can also be concluded that an approximation of the free volume from the volume of the solvent in the membrane cannot be applied to the poly(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate) gel.

Optical second harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy is used to probe Si(001) following thermal decomposition of diborane at the surface. Incorporation of boron (B) at second layer substitutional sites at H-free Si(001) intensifies and redshifts the E1 SHG spectral peak, while subsequent H termination further intensifies and blueshifts E1, in sharp contrast to the effect of bulk B doping or nonsubstitutional B. Ab initio pseudopotential and semiempirical tight binding calculations independently reproduce these unique trends, and attribute them to the surface electric field associated with charge transfer to electrically active B acceptors, and rehybridization of atomic bonds.