Recent Innovations

More recendy, inspired by the impact of combinatorial chemistry on the drug development process and the desire to lower research costs, interest in approaches to efficient materials investigations has enjoyed a resurgence. [7] Xiang and coworkers [8] 

Experiments using the DCC approach aimed at the discovery of improved phosphor materials have also been described. [9] In this case, samples are evaluated optically, an approach well suited to direct comparisons of large numbers of samples, although it is somewhat difficult to compare the results to the optical properties of bulk materials. Further spectroscopic evaluations of individual elements of the sample array are also easily accomplished by a variety of approaches including scanning fiber techniques. One concern in studies of phosphors is the sensitivity of the optical behavior including fluorescence intensity to processing effects such as details of the microstructure or surface preparation. 

Films for the DCC approach can be deposited by any conventional film deposition technique including CVD, evaporation, PVD, sol-gel, etc. By monitoring the rates and the deposition time for each of the constituents in a given sample, approximate compositions of the various samples can be tracked. However, in any thin-film sample the direct structural and compositional evaluation is problematic. 

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A recent innovation in IR sample preparation is the use of disposable sample cards made from thin sheets of either polyethylene (PE) or polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). 

Continuous Saponification Systems. A relatively recent innovation in the production of soap, these systems have led to improved manufacturing efficiency and considerably shorter processing times. There are a number of commercial systems available even though these systems are different in design aspects or specific operations, they all saponify fats and oils to finished soap using the same general process (Fig. 3). 

Because of the complexity of the polyether antibiotics tittle progress has been made in stmcture determination by the chemical degradation route. X-ray methods were the techniques most successfully applied for the early stmcture elucidations. Monensin, X206, lasalocid, lysocellin, and salinomycin were included in nineteen distinct polyether x-ray analyses reported in 1983 (190). Use of mass spectrometry (191), and H (192) and nmr (141) are also reviewed. More recently, innovative developments in these latter techniques have resulted in increased applications for stmcture determinations. Eor example, heteronuclear multiple bond connectivity (hmbc) and homonuclear Hartmann-Hahn spectroscopy were used to solve the stmcture of portimicin (14) (193). East atom bombardment mass spectrometry was used in solving the stmctures of maduramicin alpha and co-factors (58). 

Encapsulated Flocculants - A recent innovation in commercially available flocculants is a counter ionic system, where one charged moiety is encapsulated and suspended in the counter charged product. This facilitates a mechanism of delayed release of the encapsulated product. 

A recent innovation includes use of a catalytic combustor. Several tests with large turbines indicate that this alternative can reduce NO, emission to less than 5 ppmv. The catalyst inside the combustion chamber actually causes a portion of the fuel to bum without the presence of a flame. This significantly reduces combustion temperature. 

Recent innovations [19] have circumvented the heat dissipation and sample stream distortion inherent in most of the previous designs. In one apparatus, developed by R S Technologies, Inc. (Wakefield, RI, USA), Teflon capillary tubes are aligned close to each other in the electrophoretic chamber. Coolant is pumped through the Teflon capillary tubes during the electrophoretic run while the electrophoretic separation is accomplished in the interstitial volume between the Teflon tubes. 

The majority of the literature reports deal with the reaction of calixarenes with Group I and II cations. Polymeric calixarenes have been the subject of a more recent innovation. Harris et al. [23] have prepared a calix[4]ar-ene methacrylate, its polymerization, and Na complex-ation (Scheme 3). They concluded that both monomers and polymers form stable complexes with sodium thiocyanate. 

Heterogeneous catalytic systems offer the advantage that separation of the products from the catalyst is usually not a problem. The reacting fluid passes through a catalyst-filled reactor m the steady state, and the reaction products can be separated by standard methods. A recent innovation called catalytic distillation combines both the catalytic reaction and the separation process in the same vessel. This combination decreases the number of unit operations involved in a chemical process and has been used to make gasoline additives such as MTBE (methyl tertiai-y butyl ether). 

Several other manufacturers and distributors run short courses and training schemes, open to persons outside their own organization. A recent innovation is the Open Tech programme, a course in private study for personnel who have the initiative to do so in their own time. 

One of the more recent innovative approaches was to look for new micro-organisms and novel carbohydrate substrates. The early fermentations used sugar beet or cane molasses, various syrups, sweet potato starch or glucose itself and the micro-organism was always an Aspergillus spp. In the early 1930 s it was found that yeasts would produce dtric add from acetate. Since then a variety of yeasts, prindpally Candida spp., has been shown to convert glucose, w-alkanes or ethanol to dtric add with great effidency. 

The most recent innovation in this field is scanning tunnelling microscopy, which has the capability of atomic resolution. In the work reported here two surface reactions are examined using this technique. These reactions are of relevance to automobile catalysis (CO oxidation on Rh) and methanol oxidation/synthesis on Cu. It is proposed that active sites are imaged in these reactions and that these active sites can indeed be extremely dilute on the surface. 

Recent innovations for detecting malaria include DNA or RNA probes by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). These, however, are not widely available for clinical use. A rapid dipstick test (ParaSight F, Becton-Dickinson, Cockeyville, MD) reportedly has a sensitivity of 88% and a specificity of 97%, which is comparable to microscopy. However, ParaSight F can give false-positive results with rheumatoid factor thus microscopy remains the optimal test. 

The trivalent Co coordination chemistry of amines is simply immense. Amines, both mono- and multidentate, are typically thermally and air stable, often commercially available, easily deriva-tized, and are well matched to the electronic needs of trivalent Co. Space does not permit a discussion of all categories of amines that have been investigated since CCC(1987) nor their limitless permutations when bound to mostly six-coordinate Co. Much of the synthetic and mechanistic work that underpins Co amine chemistry has long been known and will not be restated here. The emphasis here will be on novelty rather than breadth. That is, recent innovative aspects of the structure, reactivity, and applications of selected, but representative, collections of these simple but ever-present compounds will be our focus. 

Another recent innovation to improve the efficiency of polymer addition to water and derive the maximum yield from hydrophylic polymers was introduced by Briscoe(165,166). The method involved the preparation of a stabilized polymer slurry (SPS) to be added to water. Briscoe used water as the suspension liquid, usually also containing dissolved KC1 as a clay stabilizer, and formulated a package of inhibitors (borate and caustic) to prevent the polymer from hydrating until the pH was lowered. These concentrates remain in routine use today. 

One of the more recent innovations for the use of dichalcogenophosphates in coordination chemistry is in the synthesis of multi-metallic cluster compounds, in particular those involving d10 copper(I) or silver(I) metal centres. These clusters can be conveniently prepared from the reaction of the ammonium salt of the dichalcogenophosphate with the appropriate metal PF6 salt. The most... 

Another way to achieve high detergency performance while keeping environmental impacts low is by making intelligent products with built-in sensor functions. In these applications, the products can respond to external stimuli and fulfil their task. The inherent sensoric principles of two recent innovations, detergent tablets and dishwashing tablets with built-in rinse aid, will be discussed. 

Recent innovations in ionization techniques have allowed the development of ambient mass spectrometry. Mass spectra can be determined for samples in their native environment without sample preparation. Although the ambient mass spectrometry technique is still in its infancy, its potential for serving as a tool of choice for high-throughput bioanalysis is very encouraging. 

Four strategies are generally employed to demonstrate mass transfer limitation in aquatic systems. Most commonly, measured uptake rates are simply compared with calculated maximal mass transfer rates (equation (17)) (e.g. [48,49]). Uptake rates can also be compared under different flow conditions (e.g. [52,55,56,84]), or by varying the biomass under identical flow conditions (e.g. [85]). Finally, several recent, innovative experiments have demonstrated diffusion boundary layers using microsensors [50,51]. Of the documented examples of diffusion limitation, three major cases have been identified ... 

The primary focus of this section is on the description and applications of the recent innovations of newly emerging information services based on the personal computer (PC). 

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