This thesis is devoted to understanding solute-solvent interactions in folded and unfolded proteins. To this end, we have studied partial molar volume, Vo, and adiabatic compressibility, KoS, of 20 amino acid side chains using low weight molecular model compounds, N-acetyl amino acid amide and its derivatives, between 18 oC and 55 oC. We used our data to develop an additive scheme for calculating the partial specific volume and adiabatic compressibility of fully extended polypeptide chains as a function of pH and temperature. We compared our calculated volumetric characteristics of the fully extended conformations of apocytochrome c and apomyoglobin with the experimental values measured in neutral pH (for apocytochrome c) or acidic pH (for apomyoglobin). The comparison between the calculated and experimental volumetric characteristics suggested that neither apocytochrome c nor apomyoglobin are fully unfolded and retain solvent-inaccessible amino acid residues. To study cosolvent-solute interactions, we determined Vo and KoS of amino acid side chains and glycyl units as a function of urea concentration. We analyzed these data within the framework of a statistical thermodynamic formalism to determine the association constants, k, for the reaction in which urea binds to each of the amino acid side chains and the glycyl unit replacing two water molecules in solvation shell. Our determined k range from 0.04 to 0.39 M with the average of 0.16 ± 0.09 M. There was no apparent correlation between the values of k and the ratio of polar to nonpolar solvent accessible surface areas. This study supports a direct interaction model in which urea denatures a protein by concerted action via favorable interactions with a wide range of protein groups. In addition, we have presented buffer ionization effect on the volume of protein denaturation could be significant with the potential to affect not only its magnitude but also its sign using a pressure perturbation calorimetric technique. Our results identified buffer ionization as an important determinant of protein transition volume that needs to be carefully taken into account. Results described in this work provide fundamental understanding of solute-solvent interaction in both folded and unfolded proteins.

This thesis is devoted to understanding solute-solvent interactions in folded and unfolded proteins. To this end, we have studied partial molar volume, Vo, and adiabatic compressibility, KoS, of 20 amino acid side chains using low weight molecular model compounds, N-acetyl amino acid amide and its derivatives, between 18 oC and 55 oC. We used our data to develop an additive scheme for calculating the partial specific volume and adiabatic compressibility of fully extended polypeptide chains as a function of pH and temperature. We compared our calculated volumetric characteristics of the fully extended conformations of apocytochrome c and apomyoglobin with the experimental values measured in neutral pH (for apocytochrome c) or acidic pH (for apomyoglobin). The comparison between the calculated and experimental volumetric characteristics suggested that neither apocytochrome c nor apomyoglobin are fully unfolded and retain solvent-inaccessible amino acid residues. To study cosolvent-solute interactions, we determined Vo and KoS of amino acid side chains and glycyl units as a function of urea concentration. We analyzed these data within the framework of a statistical thermodynamic formalism to determine the association constants, k, for the reaction in which urea binds to each of the amino acid side chains and the glycyl unit replacing two water molecules in solvation shell. Our determined k range from 0.04 to 0.39 M with the average of 0.16 ± 0.09 M. There was no apparent correlation between the values of k and the ratio of polar to nonpolar solvent accessible surface areas. This study supports a direct interaction model in which urea denatures a protein by concerted action via favorable interactions with a wide range of protein groups. In addition, we have presented buffer ionization effect on the volume of protein denaturation could be significant with the potential to affect not only its magnitude but also its sign using a pressure perturbation calorimetric technique. Our results identified buffer ionization as an important determinant of protein transition volume that needs to be carefully taken into account. Results described in this work provide fundamental understanding of solute-solvent interaction in both folded and unfolded proteins.

No description available.

No description available.

Com o avanço do poder computacional nas últimas décadas, a modelagem molecular de problemas em diversas áreas se tornou mais acessível, sendo hoje uma ferramenta fundamental para o entendimento de diversos processos. Em especial, simulações moleculares com campos de força clássicos vem sendo importante para a amostragem de propriedades termodinâmicas, para a determinação de estruturas e população de confôrmeros, e seleção de configurações para utilização com métodos que combinam mecânica quântica com mecânica molecular. Os principais métodos de simulação atualmente utilizados são a dinâmica molecular (MD, do inglês molecular dynamics) e o Monte Carlo (MC). Ambos os métodos são a princípio equivalentes quando o objetivo é a amostragem configuracional, tendo a MD a vantagem de permitir a análise da dinâmica e evolução temporal, e o MC a vantagem de poder gerar configurações de forma probabilística, sem a necessidade de seguir um caminho sobre a superfície de energia potencial, o que pode resultar em uma amostragem mais eficiente. Contudo, não há ainda uma metodologia de MC que possa ser considerada eficiente e bem estabelecida para a amostragem dos graus de liberdade internos de moléculas com complexidade arbitrária. Visando avançar no desenvolvimento de métodos que trabalham nesse sentido, neste trabalho o método apresentado por Shah e Maginn [1] foi implementado e aprimorado. No método, a molécula é fragmentada em partes menores, formadas de graus de liberdade rígidos, que não variam drasticamente durante a simulação. Esses fragmentos por sua vez são conectadas por graus de liberdade maleáveis, os diedros e termos não ligados da energia. Durante a simulação a molécula tem fragmentos apagados, e então é reconstruída utilizando um esquema de Configurational Bias Monte Carlo (CBMC). A contribuição deste trabalho para a metodologia consiste em generalizar os tipos de fragmentos possíveis dentro do método, a simplificação do critério de aceitação e extensões com vieses adicionais, como é o caso do viés no potencial eletrostático e no critério de aceitação da amostragem preferencial com o CBMC. A validade da implementação do método foi avaliada através de simulações em dois sistemas simples: o octano e o 1,2-dicloroetano. Comparando a amostragem e os resultados obtidos para as populações de confôrmeros com resultados de MD e experimentais ou obtidos com outros métodos de MC da literatura foi possível verificar que a implementação reproduz os resultados esperados. Além disso, o equilíbrio conformacional da molécula de óxido mesityl (MOx) que possui duas conformações: syn e anti, foi estudado. Graças a barreira de potencial entre as duas conformações de cerca de 10 kcal/mol, a MD não é capaz de realizar uma amostragem ergódica, enquanto o CBMC realiza a amostragem sem problemas. Na simulação CBMC, a inversão da população dominante em fase gasosa e em água foi observada. Simulações do MOx em acetonitrila e metanol mostraram que a população de confôrmeros anti de fato aumenta conforme a polaridade do solvente. Entretanto, devido ao estiramento da ligação C = O do MOx em metanol devido as ligações de hidrogênio, a contribuição conformacional à posição do máximo da banda de absorção não segue a tendência da polaridade, tendo um deslocamento para o azul maior na acetonitrila do que em metanol. O estiramento da ligação C = O só pode ser observado graças a introdução da amostragem de fragmentos com deslocamentos Cartesianos e algoritmo de Metropolis ao método CBMC original. Esse efeito devido ao estiramento é compensado pelo efeito solvente, de modo que a contribuição total à energia de transição segue a polaridade do solvente. De uma maneira geral, concluímos que o desempenho do método CBMC utilizado é excelente para os casos estudados, e é inclusive superior ao da MD em alguns casos. A implementação no software DICE deixa um legado importante para diversos grupos de pesquisa, não somente por introduzir o CBMC, mas também por melhorias gerais como paralelização, lista de vizinhos e modernização do código, que foram introduzidas ao decorrer do projeto. / With the increase of computational power in the last decades, the molecular modeling of problems in several areas has become more accessible, being today a fundamental tool used to understand several processes. In particular, molecular simulations with classical force fields have been important for the sampling of thermodynamic properties, for the determination of structures and population of conformers, and for the selection of configurations to be used with methods that combine quantum mechanics with molecular mechanics. The most common simulation methods used nowadays are molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC). Both methods are in principle equivalent when the goal is configurational sampling, with MD having the advantage of allowing the analysis of the dynamics and temporal evolution, while MC has the advantage of generating the configurations in a probabilistic manner, not necessarily following a path in the potential energy surface, possibly resulting in a more efficient sampling. However, there is no MC methodology that can be considered efficient and established to sample the internal degrees of freedom of molecules with arbitrary complexity. In order to advance in the development of methods that want to achieve this goal, in this work the method presented by Shah e Maginn [1] has been implemented and improved. In the method, the molecule is fragmented into smaller parts, each one composed by the hard degrees of freedom, which do not vary dramatically during the simulation. Those fragments are then connected by soft degrees of freedom, the dihedral and non-bonded terms of the energy. During the simulation the molecule has some of its fragments deleted, and is reconstructed using a Configurational Bias Monte Carlo (CBMC) approach. The contribution of this work to the methodology is generalizing the fragment types within the method, the simplification of the acceptance criteria and some extensions with additional biases, such as electrostatic potential bias and the acceptance criterion of the preferential sampling with the CBMC. The implementation was evaluated through simulations in two simple systems: octane and 1,2-dichloroethane. Comparing the sampling and results obtained for the populations of conformers with MD results, experimental data or values obtained with different MC methods present in the literature, we verified that the implementation reproduces the expected results. Beyond that, the conformational equilibrium of the mesityl oxide (MOx) molecule which has two conformers: syn and anti, was investigated. Due to the potential energy barrier between the two conformers of about 10 kcal/mol, the MD does not perform an ergodic simulation, while the CBMC does the same sampling accordingly. In the CBMC simulation, the inversion of the dominant conformer in gas phase and water was observed. The MOx simulation in acetonitrile and methanol showed that the frequency of the anti conformer indeed increases with the solvent polarity. Nonetheless, due to the stretch of the C = O bond of MOx in methanol, attributed to the hydrogen bonds formed with the solvent, the conformational contribution to the maximum of the absorption band does not follow the polarity tendency, having a larger blue shift in acetonitrile than in methanol. The C = O bond stretch can only be seen because the Cartesian displacement sampling with the Metropolis method was introduced to the original CBMC method. This effect attributed to the stretch is compensated by the solvent, in a way that the total contribution to the transition energy follows the solvent polarity. In general, we conclude that the performance of the developed CBMC method is excellent to the studied cases, being even superior to MD in some cases. The implementation in DICE leaves an important legacy to several research groups, not only for introducing the CBMC method, but also due to general improvements such as parallelization, neighbor list and code modernization, which were introduced during the project.

Com o avanço do poder computacional nas últimas décadas, a modelagem molecular de problemas em diversas áreas se tornou mais acessível, sendo hoje uma ferramenta fundamental para o entendimento de diversos processos. Em especial, simulações moleculares com campos de força clássicos vem sendo importante para a amostragem de propriedades termodinâmicas, para a determinação de estruturas e população de confôrmeros, e seleção de configurações para utilização com métodos que combinam mecânica quântica com mecânica molecular. Os principais métodos de simulação atualmente utilizados são a dinâmica molecular (MD, do inglês molecular dynamics) e o Monte Carlo (MC). Ambos os métodos são a princípio equivalentes quando o objetivo é a amostragem configuracional, tendo a MD a vantagem de permitir a análise da dinâmica e evolução temporal, e o MC a vantagem de poder gerar configurações de forma probabilística, sem a necessidade de seguir um caminho sobre a superfície de energia potencial, o que pode resultar em uma amostragem mais eficiente. Contudo, não há ainda uma metodologia de MC que possa ser considerada eficiente e bem estabelecida para a amostragem dos graus de liberdade internos de moléculas com complexidade arbitrária. Visando avançar no desenvolvimento de métodos que trabalham nesse sentido, neste trabalho o método apresentado por Shah e Maginn [1] foi implementado e aprimorado. No método, a molécula é fragmentada em partes menores, formadas de graus de liberdade rígidos, que não variam drasticamente durante a simulação. Esses fragmentos por sua vez são conectadas por graus de liberdade maleáveis, os diedros e termos não ligados da energia. Durante a simulação a molécula tem fragmentos apagados, e então é reconstruída utilizando um esquema de Configurational Bias Monte Carlo (CBMC). A contribuição deste trabalho para a metodologia consiste em generalizar os tipos de fragmentos possíveis dentro do método, a simplificação do critério de aceitação e extensões com vieses adicionais, como é o caso do viés no potencial eletrostático e no critério de aceitação da amostragem preferencial com o CBMC. A validade da implementação do método foi avaliada através de simulações em dois sistemas simples: o octano e o 1,2-dicloroetano. Comparando a amostragem e os resultados obtidos para as populações de confôrmeros com resultados de MD e experimentais ou obtidos com outros métodos de MC da literatura foi possível verificar que a implementação reproduz os resultados esperados. Além disso, o equilíbrio conformacional da molécula de óxido mesityl (MOx) que possui duas conformações: syn e anti, foi estudado. Graças a barreira de potencial entre as duas conformações de cerca de 10 kcal/mol, a MD não é capaz de realizar uma amostragem ergódica, enquanto o CBMC realiza a amostragem sem problemas. Na simulação CBMC, a inversão da população dominante em fase gasosa e em água foi observada. Simulações do MOx em acetonitrila e metanol mostraram que a população de confôrmeros anti de fato aumenta conforme a polaridade do solvente. Entretanto, devido ao estiramento da ligação C = O do MOx em metanol devido as ligações de hidrogênio, a contribuição conformacional à posição do máximo da banda de absorção não segue a tendência da polaridade, tendo um deslocamento para o azul maior na acetonitrila do que em metanol. O estiramento da ligação C = O só pode ser observado graças a introdução da amostragem de fragmentos com deslocamentos Cartesianos e algoritmo de Metropolis ao método CBMC original. Esse efeito devido ao estiramento é compensado pelo efeito solvente, de modo que a contribuição total à energia de transição segue a polaridade do solvente. De uma maneira geral, concluímos que o desempenho do método CBMC utilizado é excelente para os casos estudados, e é inclusive superior ao da MD em alguns casos. A implementação no software DICE deixa um legado importante para diversos grupos de pesquisa, não somente por introduzir o CBMC, mas também por melhorias gerais como paralelização, lista de vizinhos e modernização do código, que foram introduzidas ao decorrer do projeto. / With the increase of computational power in the last decades, the molecular modeling of problems in several areas has become more accessible, being today a fundamental tool used to understand several processes. In particular, molecular simulations with classical force fields have been important for the sampling of thermodynamic properties, for the determination of structures and population of conformers, and for the selection of configurations to be used with methods that combine quantum mechanics with molecular mechanics. The most common simulation methods used nowadays are molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC). Both methods are in principle equivalent when the goal is configurational sampling, with MD having the advantage of allowing the analysis of the dynamics and temporal evolution, while MC has the advantage of generating the configurations in a probabilistic manner, not necessarily following a path in the potential energy surface, possibly resulting in a more efficient sampling. However, there is no MC methodology that can be considered efficient and established to sample the internal degrees of freedom of molecules with arbitrary complexity. In order to advance in the development of methods that want to achieve this goal, in this work the method presented by Shah e Maginn [1] has been implemented and improved. In the method, the molecule is fragmented into smaller parts, each one composed by the hard degrees of freedom, which do not vary dramatically during the simulation. Those fragments are then connected by soft degrees of freedom, the dihedral and non-bonded terms of the energy. During the simulation the molecule has some of its fragments deleted, and is reconstructed using a Configurational Bias Monte Carlo (CBMC) approach. The contribution of this work to the methodology is generalizing the fragment types within the method, the simplification of the acceptance criteria and some extensions with additional biases, such as electrostatic potential bias and the acceptance criterion of the preferential sampling with the CBMC. The implementation was evaluated through simulations in two simple systems: octane and 1,2-dichloroethane. Comparing the sampling and results obtained for the populations of conformers with MD results, experimental data or values obtained with different MC methods present in the literature, we verified that the implementation reproduces the expected results. Beyond that, the conformational equilibrium of the mesityl oxide (MOx) molecule which has two conformers: syn and anti, was investigated. Due to the potential energy barrier between the two conformers of about 10 kcal/mol, the MD does not perform an ergodic simulation, while the CBMC does the same sampling accordingly. In the CBMC simulation, the inversion of the dominant conformer in gas phase and water was observed. The MOx simulation in acetonitrile and methanol showed that the frequency of the anti conformer indeed increases with the solvent polarity. Nonetheless, due to the stretch of the C = O bond of MOx in methanol, attributed to the hydrogen bonds formed with the solvent, the conformational contribution to the maximum of the absorption band does not follow the polarity tendency, having a larger blue shift in acetonitrile than in methanol. The C = O bond stretch can only be seen because the Cartesian displacement sampling with the Metropolis method was introduced to the original CBMC method. This effect attributed to the stretch is compensated by the solvent, in a way that the total contribution to the transition energy follows the solvent polarity. In general, we conclude that the performance of the developed CBMC method is excellent to the studied cases, being even superior to MD in some cases. The implementation in DICE leaves an important legacy to several research groups, not only for introducing the CBMC method, but also due to general improvements such as parallelization, neighbor list and code modernization, which were introduced during the project.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-04-27T17:37:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 stefanosleitegeorgopoulos.pdf: 4197342 bytes, checksum: 2974d92b3639af53c51f602c3cd7723f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-13T13:03:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 stefanosleitegeorgopoulos.pdf: 4197342 bytes, checksum: 2974d92b3639af53c51f602c3cd7723f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-13T13:03:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 stefanosleitegeorgopoulos.pdf: 4197342 bytes, checksum: 2974d92b3639af53c51f602c3cd7723f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-25 / CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / A investigação das soluções de ácido esquárico (H2SQ), diprótico, em dimetilsulfóxido, utilizando a espectroscopia Raman, com o auxílio do cálculo dos métodos numéricos, possibilitou identificar e determinar quantitativamente diversas espécies formadas em solução, distinguindo também as possíveis interações entre o solvente e o soluto e, ainda, a interação entre os solutos vizinhos. A identificação destas interações permitiu tanto a descoberta de espécies químicas na solução, como o H2SQ não-dissociado, formando complexo e não formando complexo, como a fração de H2SQ que se dissociou, formando o ânion monovalente hidrogeno-esquarato (HSQ-) e o ânion divalente esquarato (SQ2-). Também se fez a determinação do tipo de interação predominante que ocorre entre os H2SQ, explicando-se a razão de surgir a cor rosa nas soluções que contêm o H2SQ como soluto, através da interação π-π entre os anéis vizinhos. A formação de sistemas cristalinos através dos sais contendo os cátions tetraalquilamônio e os ânions originados dos oxocarbonos, tais como o íon SQ2-, o ânion divalente croconato e o íon HSQ-, fornece condições de investigar como a variação do volume do cátion influencia na forma da dissociação iônica sofrida pelo H2SQ. Ao compararmos os diferentes sais de tetraalquilamônio, podemos perceber a avidez do ânion divalente croconato, por moléculas de água, e a preferência dos ânions derivados do H2SQ e do próprio H2SQ por realizar ligações de hidrogênio entre si, em solução aquosa. Estes sistemas cristalinos mostram claramente a maior “maciez” da nuvem eletrônica dos íons originados a partir da dissociação iônica do H2SQ do que a daqueles originados no íon croconato. A formação exclusiva do íon SQ2-, ligado, por ponte de hidrogênio, a outros dois H2SQ, no esquarato de tetrabutilamônio, enquanto no sal de tetrapropilamônio há apenas dois íons HSQ-, ligados por pontes de hidrogênio entre si, mostram o quanto o volume do cátion influencia na quantidade de dissociação iônica sofrida pelo H2SQ. / Investigations of the diprotic squaric acid (H2SQ) solutions in dimethylsulfoxide using Raman spectroscopy supported by numerical method calculation, were able to identifying and measure the amounts of the several species present in solutions, taking into account the interactions between solvent and solute, as well as the neighbouring solutes. The identification of such interactions allowed the discover of the chemical species present in the solution, as for instance the complex and non-complex H2SQ associated species, and the dissociated H2SQ, as a fraction of the hydrogen squarate anion (HSQ-) and divalent anion squarate (SQ2-). In addition, the type of interaction between neighbors H2SQ has also been determined, justifying the reason of an emerging pink color for the H2SQ solutions, probably generated by π-π interaction between neighbor rings of H2SQ species. The synthesis of a crystaline system originated by tetraalkylammonium cations and oxocarbon anions, as a SQ2- ion, croconate divalent anion and HSQ- ion was able to investigate how the variation of the cationic volume can influence the type of ionic dissociation presented by the different H2SQ species. When comparing different tetraalkylammonium salts, it can be noticed a great affinity by water molecules from croconate divalent anion, and the preference of the anions derived from H2SQ to perform hydrogen bonds between them, in aqueous solution. This crystalline system shows more “softly” electronic clouds of the ions originated from ionic dissociation of the H2SQ than croconate ion. Exclusive formation of the SQ2- ion, bonded by htdrogen bonds, for two H2SQ species, in the tetrabutylammonium squarate salts, while in the tetrapropylammonium salts have only two HSQ- ions, bonded by hydrogen bonds between them, has also showed how the cation volume can be an important influence for the ionic dissociation quantities suffered by H2SQ.

Pevaporation is a method for separating volatile components from liquid mixtures at ambient temperatures. The paint processing industry uses Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) to indicate polymer solubility. The potential of this method to predict solvent-polymer affinity was investigated for screening potential membrane materials for the pervaporation of a model solution containing linalool and linalyl acetate (major components of lavender essential oil), in ethanol. Published HSP values were collated for various polymers, and statistically analysed to determine variations in HSP values for polymer species. An investigation of published research into pervaporation of organic/organic binary solutions separated by homogeneous membranes indicated that the solvent whose HSP value was closest to that of the polymer would preferentially permeate. This relationship did not always hold for halogenated solvents or aqueous/organic solutions. Conflicting literature regarding the relationship between solvent uptake by polymers and HSP relative energy differences was resolved using a logarithmic relationship between these two parameters. The following membranes were selected, using their HSP to indicate their potential to interact with lavender oil components: Polyamide (PA: 26.9 micro;m), Polycarbonate (PC: 20.5 micro;m), Poly(ether imide) (PEI: 29.2 micro;m), Poly(ether sulphone) (PES: 27.6 micro;m), Polyethylene (HDPE: 10 micro;m, LDPE: 13-30 micro;m), Polyimide (PI: 30.0 micro;m), Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA: 50 micro;m), Polypropylene (PP: 15.9 micro;m), and Poly(tetrafluoro ethylene) (PTFE: 26.7 micro;m). The HSP (dispersive, polar hydrogen bonding components) for each membrane were calculated using the mean value obtained from swelling experiments, group contribution (calculated using Hoftyzer-Van Krevelen, Hoy and Beerbower methods), refractive indices (dispersive component), dielectric constants (polar component), and published HSP values. Pervaporation experiments investigated the effect of membrane thickness, process temperature, permeate pressure, impinging jet heights, feed flow rates and concentrations, and pre-soaking the membrane; on flow rate and selectivity in a polyethylene membrane. Membrane thickness was the dominant factor in membrane selectivity; the thinnest membranes (11.3-14.8 micro;m) had much poorer selectivity than membranes gt;24.7 micro;m. Temperatures between 22-34ordm;C, permeate pressure lt;10 kPa, impinging jet heights between 0.36-3.36 mm, feed flow rates between 541-1328 mL/min and concentrations between 1.78-6.01 % v/v of linalool and linalyl acetate in ethanol did not significantly affect selectivity. Flow rates increased with operating temperature, permeate pressure, and impinging jet heights. However, feed flow rate and concentration had no effect on membrane flux rate. Pre-soaking the membrane reduced the time to reach steady-state. Selected membranes were further investigated under standard operating conditions (permeate temperature 30ordm;C, permeate pressure lt;10 kPa, impinging jet height 1.36 mm, feed flow rate 804 mL/min and feed concentration of 5% v/v of linalool and linalyl acetate in ethanol). PMMA completely disintegrated in feed solution, and PC was too brittle to make an effective homogeneous membrane. PA, PC, PEI and PTFE had the highest efficiency (selectivity x flow rate) in their homogeneous form. However, PEI, PI and PTFE had the greatest selectivity, thus further trials should be done to improve stability and flow rates through these membranes. Pervaporation selectivity did not always follow trends predicted by HSP. Although polymers such as PA, PEI, PES, and PI preferentially permeated linalool as predicted, PC, PP and PTFE did not preferentially permeate linalyl acetate. This may have been due to the difference in size and diffusivity of these molecules (linalyl acetate, the larger molecule, did not follow the sorption selectivity predictions), or reliability of literature HSP values and those calculated by group contribution. This research shows that HSP is a good screening method for pervaporation membranes, especially where the molecules being separated are of comparable size. Polymers that have HSP close to the desired component and not to other components tend to have the best selectivity and flux characteristics. However, diffusion is an important factor, and is not completely accounted for by HSP. Recommendations for further research include: carrying out pervaporation analyses of selected polymers using pure lavender essential oil; modifying polymers to form asymmetric or composite membranes with improved permeation characteristics; and potential use of thin channel inverse gas chromatography to determine a more accurate HSP which includes diffusivity.

In solution, the environment around the solute is determined solely by the solvent molecules, which are present closer to the solute. This interaction between solute and solvent shell is very crucial for equilibrium structure and reactivity of the solute. In the thesis, first we have investigated control of solvent polarity on the excited structure of 2,2,2 trifluroacetophenone and later effect of electronic excitation on the solvent shell organization has been described. It has been reported in literature that the lowest energy triplet configuration of 2,2,2 trifluroacetophenone corresponds to n,π* state. There are some other reports in favor of the probable existence of 2,2,2 trifluroacetophenone in n,π* lowest triplet state. Thus, transient absorption and time resolved resonance Raman spectroscopic methods have been used along with theoretical calculations to investigate the discrepancy in the assignment of the lowest triplet state configuration It has been observed that the lowest triplet state of 2,2,2 trifluroacetophenone is indeed nπ* and there is a solvent polarity induced change in triplet state energy ordering and structure changes. The absorption spectrum of hydrated electron is broad and structureless. So, it was though that the broadening feature could be attributed to homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening. Transient resonance Raman spectrum of the water bending mode in presence of hydrated electron has been recorded at different excitation wavelengths. Interestingly, it has been observed that, peak position of water bending mode in presence of hydrated electron alters with change of excitation wavelength. A model has been proposed based on the experimental data.

MSc (Chemistry) / Department of Chemistry