Temperature jump techniques time scales

The observation of a single set of resonances in the NMR spectra of [Fe(HB(pz)3)2], spectra that are clearly obtained for a mixture of the high-spin and low-spin forms of the complex, indicates that the equilibrium between the two states is rapid on the NMR time scale [27]. Subsequent solution studies by Beattie et al. [52, 53] using both a laser temperature-jump technique and an ultrasonic relaxation technique have established that the spin-state lifetime for [Fe(HB(pz)3)2] is 3.2xl0 8 s. These studies also established... 

The temperature-jump technique [39, 40] is frequently used to study the kinetics of rapidly equilibrating processes in solution on a microsecond time scale. This technique can only be applied to equilibria that are sensitive to temperature, such that a rapid temperature jump of a few degrees will result in a relaxation of the system to the new temperature, a process that can be followed on a micro- or millisecond time scale. 

At present we are far from an understanding of the protein folding process. Even numerical methods as e.g. molecular dynamics simulations do not lead to realistic predictions. Experiments on the folding process have been performed initially on the millisecond time-scale. It was only recently that new techniques - temperature jump or triplet-triplet quenching experiments - allowed a first access to the nanosecond time domain [2-4]. However, the elementary reactions in protein folding occur on the femto- to picosecond time-scale (femtobiology). In order to allow experiments in this temporal range we developed a new... 

There have been very few studies on the kinetics of micellization in block copolymer solutions. Micellization in aqueous surfactant systems close to equilibrium occurs on a time-scale far below one second. Experimental results obtained by fast reaction techniques, such as temperature jumps or pressure jumps or steady-state methods such as ultrasonic absorption, NMR and ESR, show that at least... 

A number of soil chemical phenomena are characterized by rapid reaction rates that occur on millisecond and microsecond time scales. Batch and flow techniques cannot be used to measure such reaction rates. Moreover, kinetic studies that are conducted using these methods yield apparent rate coefficients and apparent rate laws since mass transfer and transport processes usually predominate. Relaxation methods enable one to measure reaction rates on millisecond and microsecond time scales and 10 determine mechanistic rate laws. In this chapter, theoretical aspects of chemical relaxation are presented. Transient relaxation methods such as temperature-jump, pressure-jump, concentration-jump, and electric field pulse techniques will be discussed and their application to the study of cation and anion adsorption/desorption phenomena, ion-exchange processes, and hydrolysis and complexation reactions will he covered. 

For reactions that occur on time scales < 15 s, none of the techniques given above is satisfactory. To measure these reactions, one can employ relaxation methods (Table 3-1), such as pressure-jump, temperature-jump, concentration-jump, and electric-field pulse (Bernasconi, 1976 Gettins and Wyn-Jones, 1979 Bernasconi, 1986 Sparks, 1989, 1990). 

At the suggestion of one reviewer, we oflFer a brief discussion of the techniques used in proposing a mechanism for a given reaction from kinetic data obtained by rapid reaction techniques. We use the case of the reaction of fluoride with HRP as an example. The proton reactions are too rapid to observe on the time scale of a conventional temperature-jump apparatus (32). These proton reactions would couple the three paths for fluoride binding and dissociation proposed in Mechanism I so that only one relaxation time, t, is observed. At any given pH, the relation between t and the constants in the above mechanism is... 

The vast majority of fast ligand substitutions studied to date are in the s, ms, and fjLS time scales, which encompass a vast range of reactions, and for which fast reaction techniques have become both refined and readily commercially available. Not surprisingly the majority of reactions reported in this chapter fall into these time scales, and have been studied predominantly by stopped-flow, temperature-jump, or nuclear magnetic resonance fast reaction techniques, which are referred to by the initials SF, TJ, and NMR hereafter. However, substantial rewards await those who venture into the ns and ps time scale as shown by a study of the recombination kinetics of small ligands at the Fe(II) center of sperm whale and elephant myoglobins in which laser pulses of 1 ps and 4 ns facilitated the determination of rate constants in the range 3 x 10 to 5 x s and 10 to 10 ... 

The steady-state and rapid equilibrium kinetics do not give detailed information on the existence of multiple intermediates or on their lifetimes. Such information is provided by fast (or transient) kinetics. The methods can be divided in two categories rapid-mixing techniques (stopped-flow, rapid-scanning stopped-flow, quenched flow) which operate in a millisecond time scale and relaxation techniques (temperature jump, pressure jump) which monitor a transient reaction in a microsecond time scale. Most of the transient kinetic methods rely on spectrophotomet-rically observable substrate changes during the course of enzyme catalysis. 

Polarographic data yield ki2 = 1.3 X lO W" sec, which agrees well with specific rates of similar reactions shown in Table II. The specific rate kn of the much slower dehydration reaction has been determined by both the temperature and pressure jump methods to be about 0.5 sec at pH 3 and 25 °C with some general acid-base catalysis. While the hydration-dehydration equilibrium itself involves no conductivity change, it is coupled to a protolytic reaction that does, and a pressure jump determination of 32 is therefore possible. In this particular case the measured relaxation time is about 1 sec. The pressure jump technique permits the measurement of chemical relaxation times in the range 50 sec to 50 tisec, and thus complements the temperature jump method on the long end of the relaxation time scale. 

The evolution of the experimental anisotropy as a function of the temperature is shown in Fig. 8. As expected, the decay rate increases as the temperature increases. For the highest temperature (t > 50 °C), it can be noticed that the anisotropy decays from a value close to the fundamental anisotropy of DMA to almost zero in the time window of the experiment (about 60 ns). This means that the initial orientation of a backbone segment is almost completely lost within this time. This possibiUty to directly check the amplitude of motions associated with the involved relaxation is a very useful advantage of FAD. In particular, it indicates that in the temperature range 50 °C 80 °C, we sample continuously and almost completely the elementary brownian motion in polymer melts. Processes too fast to be observed by this technique involve only very small angles of rotation and cannot be associated with backbone rearrangements. On the other hand, the processes too slow to be sampled concern only a very low residual orientational correlation, i.e. they are important only on a scale much larger than the size of conformational jumps. 

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