Enzymatic reaction of the immobilized enzyme on porous silicon studied by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry

Desorption/ionization on silicon mass spectrometry (DIOS-MS) is a matrix-free technique that allows for the direct desorption/ionization of low-molecular-weight compounds with little or no fragmentation of analytes. This technique has a relatively high tolerance for contaminants commonly found in biological samples. DIOS-MS has been applied to determine the activity of immobilized enzymes on the porous silicon surface. Enzyme activities were also monitored with the addition of a competitive inhibitor in the substrate solution. It is demonstrated that this method can be applied to the screening of enzyme inhibitors. Furthermore, a method for peptide mapping analysis by in situ digestion of proteins on the porous silicon surface modified by trypsin, combined with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-MS has been developed.

Coherent classical-path description of deep tunneling

A central challenge to the semiclassical description of quantum mechanics is the quantum phenomenon of "deep" tunneling. Here we show that real time classical trajectories suffice to account correctly even for deep quantum tunneling, using a recently formulated semiclassical initial value representation series of the quantum propagator and a prefactor free semiclassical propagator. Deep quantum tunneling is effected through what we term as coherent classical paths which are composed of one or more classical trajectories that lead from reactant to product but are discontinuous along the way. The end and initial phase space points of consecutive classical trajectories contributing to the coherent path are close to each other in the sense that the distance between them is weighted by a coherent state overlap matrix element. Results are presented for thermal and energy dependent tunneling through a symmetric Eckart barrier.

Close-coupling time-dependent quantum dynamics study of the H+HCl reaction

The paper presents a theoretical study of the dynamics of the H + HCl system on the potential energy surface (PES) of Bian and Werner (Bian, W.; Werner, H. -J., J. Chem. Phys. 2000, 112, 220). A time-dependent wave packet approach was employed to calculate state-to-state reaction probabilities for the exchanged and abstraction channels. The most recent PES for the system has been used in the calculations. Reaction probabilities have also been calculated for several values of the total angular momentum J > 0. Those have then been used to estimate cross sections and rate constants for both channels. The calculated cross sections can be compared with the results of previous quasiclassical trajectory calculations and reaction dynamics experimental on the abstraction channel. In addition, the calculated rate constants are in the reasonably good agreement with experimental measurement.

Effect of acidity in TS-1 zeolites on product distribution of the styrene oxidation reaction

The role of Bronsted acidity of titanium silicalite zeolite (with different ratios of Si/Ti) in oxidation reactions of styrene has been investigated and discussed. For zeolites with Si/Ti > 42, most of the titanium is in the zeolite framework. These framework titanium species, which act both as the isolated titanium centers and as Bronsted acidity centers (together with the Bronsted acidity produced by the tetrahedral aluminum impurity introduced during synthesis), can catalyze both the epoxidation and the succeeding rearrangement reactions, thus promoting the formation of phenylacetaldehyde. With an increase in the titanium content of the zeolite, titanium will tend to stay outside the zeolite lattice, except for the TiOx nanophases which can be occluded in the zeolite channels or on the external surface. These non-framework titanium species are favorable for the carbon-carbon bond scission, leading to the production of additional benzaldehyde. The catalytic performances of these zeolites with different Si/Ti ratios are correlated here with their structural information by using solid-state NMR and UV-Vis methods. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.