Synthesis of Autofluorescent Phenanthrene Microparticles via Emulsification: A Useful Synthetic Mimic for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon-Based Cosmic Dust

Phenanthrene is the simplest example of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). Herein, we exploit its relatively low melting point (101 °C) to prepare microparticles from molten phenanthrene droplets by conducting high-shear homogenization in a 3:1 water/ethylene glycol mixture at 105 °C using poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone) as a non-ionic polymeric emulsifier. Scanning electron microscopy studies confirm that this protocol produces polydisperse phenanthrene microparticles with a spherical morphology: laser diffraction studies indicate a volume-average diameter of 25 ± 21 μm. Such projectiles are fired into an aluminum foil target at 1.87 km s-1 using a two-stage light gas gun. Interestingly, the autofluorescence exhibited by phenanthrene aids analysis of the resulting impact craters. More specifically, it enables assessment of the spatial distribution of any surviving phenanthrene in the vicinity of each crater. Furthermore, these phenanthrene microparticles can be coated with an ultrathin overlayer of polypyrrole, which reduces their autofluorescence. In principle, such core-shell microparticles should be useful for assessing the extent of thermal ablation that is likely to occur when they are fired into aerogel targets. Accordingly, polypyrrole-coated microparticles were fired into an aerogel target at 2.07 km s-1. Intact microparticles were identified at the end of carrot tracks and their relatively weak autofluorescence suggests that thermal ablation during aerogel capture did not completely remove the polypyrrole overlayer. Thus, these new core-shell microparticles appear to be useful model projectiles for assessing the extent of thermal processing that can occur in such experiments, which have implications for the capture of intact PAH-based dust grains originating from cometary tails or from plumes emanating from icy satellites (e.g., Enceladus) in future space missions.

Characterization of overoxidized polypyrrole colloids imprinted with L-lactate and their application to enantioseparation of amino acids

Overoxidized polypyrrole colloids imprinted with L-lactate were prepared to evaluate the performance of the overoxidation pseudo-template technique developed by the authors. A polypyrrole colloid that had been prepared from a mixture of monomer (pyrrole), dopant (L-lactate), steric stabilizer (poly(vinylpyrrolidone)) and oxidizing agent (peroxodisulfate) was electrochemically overoxidized at +1.5 V vs Ag/AgCl to create a complementary cavity for recognition of the molecules, which were structurally similar to dopant, through dedoping. As a target molecule for enantioselective uptake into the overoxidized colloid, we selected alanine, which is structurally different from the template (lactate) only in one side chain (alanine, -NH2; lactic acid, -OH). The overoxidized polypyrrole colloid showed higher affinity for L-alanine than for D-alanine, and an uptake ratio (L/D) of as high as 11 +/- 4 was observed under optimum conditions. Uptake reached equilibrium in 10 min, thanks to the high surface area and short diffusion length in the colloidal particle. Further, to confirm the complementarity of the cavity, the effect of side chain size on uptake of several alpha-amino acids was examined to indicate that the uptake amount decreased with increasing molecular volume of the L-amino acids.

Interaction of the Imidazole Ring with Surface Anchored Polypyrrole Latex Particles

Sterically stabilized polypyrrole latex particles attached to Au substrates were observed to adsorb imidazole and histidine from aqueous solutions by ellipsometry. In initial studies the imidazole ring adsorption was mainly irreversible, but after electrochemical reduction-oxidation cycling of the particles in HCl solution only reversible adsorption of the heterocyclic compounds was observed. Adsorption experiments on control surfaces containing the different components of the latex particles identified iron species incorporated during synthesis as the probable irreversible adsorption sites. The reversible adsorption sites were possibly due to the acidic properties of the polypyrrole core in the particles. Copyright 1998 Academic Press. Copyright 1998Academic Press