Solvent extraction behaviour of thiocyanic acid.
The solvent extraction behaviour of thiocyanic acid with isobutyl methyl ketone and xylene as solvents is described. In the ketone system the thiocyanic acid is solvated in the organic phase to give a complex with a proposed composition of HSCN. 2IBMK. Deviations from ideal behaviour, which can be attributed to variations in the activity coefficient of the acid in the aqueous phase, are shown.
Thiocyanate complexing of Np(IV) and Pu(III)
Abstract The thiocyanate complexing of Np(IV), at μ = 2.0 and [H + ] = 1.0 M, has been studied by solvent extraction method, using thenoyltrifluoroacetone (TTA) and dinonylnaphthalene-sulphanic acid (DNNS), and that of Pu(III), under similar conditions, using DNNS. Data indicate the formation of three successive complexes between Np(IV) and SCN − with the overall stability constants 31.3 ± 4.9, 114.7 ± 20.7 and 340.9 ± 18.3. Pu(III) seems to form only one complex upto [SCN − ] ⩽ 0.4 M, with the stability constant value of 2.14 + 0.15, whereas further complexing appears to occur at higher concentrations of SCN − ; the β 2 is estimated to be about 0.5. Spectrophotometric and solvent extraction data obtained further confirmed the thiocyanate complexing of these two ions. The thermodynamic constants associated with the complex formation of Np(IV) with thiocyanate have also been determined.
New method for analysis of enzymatic reactions: Thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of aspartame precursor
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener which is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. A precursor of aspartame, N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)-l-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester (Z-APM) was synthesized and hydrolyzed with thermolysin in an aqueous monophasic system. Graphical plotting methods and/or nonlinear regression have been used to analyze enzymatic reactions because of the nonlinearity of enzymatic rate equations. There are, however, problems: the former require accurate measurement of the initial reaction rate and the latter gives no analytical information. The authors proposed a method to solve the nonlinear enzymatic rate equations with respect to the concentration of a product with the Taylor expansion, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism (Murakami, Y., Hirata, M., and Hirata, A., J. Ferment. Bioeng., 82, 246–252, 1996). This solution, however, is complex for practical use. In this paper, a simpler solution to explain the thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of Z-APM is obtained. New methods to determine the kinetic parameters, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism, based on the approximated solution are proposed. The results calculated using the obtained kinetic parameters can satisfactorily explain the experimental results, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed analysis. We must know the relation between the concentrations of substrates and a product, and accurately evaluate of the result obtained using Taylor expansion when we determine the kinetic parameters using our newly developed methods. The methods to determine the kinetic parameters of the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism described in this paper is, however, expected to be applied to general enzymatic reactions.