Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1939. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 22.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Helsinki University of Technology, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri, School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1937. / The entire thesis text is included in file. Typescript. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed June 15, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-44).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Minerals and Energy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-286)

In the first chapter, sodium tetrathionate (TT), a sulfhydryl blocking agent, is assessed for its ability to protect the proteolytic activity (PA) of papaya latex during air, sun or vacuum drying, and of crude papain during storage. By means of Taguchi's L₂₇ (3¹³) fractional factorial design, it was found that the addition of 1% TT significantly increased the retention of PA of papaya latex when it was air dried at a temperature of 55°C. This protection of PA was found to be 23% higher than the one given by the addition of 1% sodium metabisulfite, the compound commonly used in the commercial processing of papaya latex. When drying was carried out either under 27 inches vacuum at 50°C or in the sun, the protective effect of TT on the PA was not significantly different from that of metabisulfite. The PA of crude papain during storage at room temperature was also protected by TT. A loss of 20% of the original PA occurred over a period of 13 wk when crude papain contained 1% TT, compared to a loss of 45% when the crude enzyme preparation contained 1% metabisulfite. In the same chapter five different oxidants for synthesis of TT from thiosulfate are compared, namely: iodine, hydrogen peroxide, ferric chloride, cupric sulfate and sodium vanadate. The results indicated that hydrogen peroxide or sodium vanadate were not only effective in the oxidation but also much less expensive than iodine, which is the most popular oxidant for the synthesis of TT. The results obtained in this chapter warrant the use of TT in the commercial production of commercial papain to prevent the destruction of the enzymes during harvesting, storage, transportation and processing. In the second chapter, chemical modification of pure papain by TT is discussed. Optimization techniques were applied for improving the precision of two methods used in this study: circular dichroism (CD) and proteolytic activity determination. Simplex optimization significantly improved repeatability and signal to noise ratio of the CD scan of papain. A new optimization approach, which was a combination of a central composite rotatable design and simplex optimization, was successfully applied to achieve maximum precision for the proteolytic activity assay of papain using casein as a substrate. This approach may also be applied to other analytical methods to improve the reliability of the experimental data. Influential factors in the inactivation of PA of papain by using TT and reactivation of the inactivated papain by cysteine were carried out using two Taguchi's L₁₆ (2¹⁵) fractional factorial designs. The results indicated that when inactivation was carried out at pH 6.8, with a reaction time of 5 min at 22°C, and a molar ratio of TT to papain of 10, the inactivation reaction was highly reversible upon addition of 20 mM cysteine. Although some interactions of the factors were significant, 70% reactivation was achieved in most cases. Analysis of UV absorbance, near-UV and far-UV CD spectra indicated that there were no major changes in the spectra in papain upon the chemical modification of the enzyme with TT. Secondary structure computed from far-UV CD spectra also demonstrated no significant changes upon this modification. Sulfhydryl data and pH-fluorescence profiles of the modified papain support the hypothesis that reversible blocking by TT results from binding with the single reactive cysteine residue present in papain. Quenching of the intrinsic fluorescence of papain when the modification was carried out using high molar ratios of TT to papain was suggestive of modification of tryptophan residues in the enzyme during the oxidation reaction with TT. Precipitation or insolubilization of pure papain, and of the proteins of papaya latex and commercial papain was observed upon the chemical modification with TT under certain conditions. Addition of β-mercaptoethanol and TT at levels of 100 mM and 50 mM, respectively, precipitated 90% of pure papain. Solubility studies together with electrophoretic analysis of the precipitated papain suggested formation of insoluble aggregates due to the insoluble aggregation as a result of inter-molecular disulfide bonds formation. TT was found to be a competitive inhibitor of both reversible and irreversible inhibition of the enzyme action, when carbobenzoxyglycine p-nitrophenyl ester was used as a substrate. The second order inactivation constant in the absence of substrate was computed to be 16,919 M⁻¹sec⁻¹, indicating that the reaction had a high rate. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

Open-framework inorganic materials constitute an important area of study in materials chemistry, because of their potential applications in areas such as sorption and catalysis. After the discovery of nanoporous aluminium phosphates (AlPOs) by Flanigen et al in 1982, there has been a tremendous growth in the area of porous solids that are based on phosphates. Apart from phosphates, phosphites, arsenates, sulfates, sulfites, selenates, selenites etc. have also been investigated. In addition to the different anions, the framework compounds now encompass almost all the elements of the periodic table. The compounds exhibit wide variety and structural diversity. New building units, such as thiosulfate and borate have also been explored as a network builder in the formation of framework structures. In this thesis, the results of the investigations on open-framework metal thiosulfates, metal borates and metal sulfates are presented. The studies are aimed not only at the synthesis of the new compounds based on the new anions, but also their possible applications. In Chapter 1 of the thesis an overview of inorganic open-framework materials with different anions is presented. In Chapter 2 (Part A), the synthesis, structure and transformation of inorganic-organic hybrid open-framework cadmium thiosulfate are presented. The lack of stability of the thiosulfate ion in solution prompted the exploration of new approaches such as low temperature solvothermal methods, use of rigid linkers etc. The transformations of lower to higher dimensional structures have been accomplished. The possible mechanisms for such transformations were investigated. In Part B, the physical and chemical properties of the hybrid cadmium thiosulfate frameworks are presented. The studies indicate that the anionic dyes selectively adsorb on the compounds in the water medium and also desorb reasonably in alcoholic medium. The cadmium thiosulfate compounds appear to be reasonable photocalysts for the photodecomposition of the cationic dyes under UV irradiation as well as under sunlight with good recyclability. The compounds also exhibit heterogeneous catalytic behavior (Lewis acidity) for the cyanosilylation of the imines. In Chapter 3, a new family of organically templated open-framework borate materials is presented. The zinc and aluminoborate structures, prepared in the present study, are rationalized using the HSAB theory. The [B4O9H2] units polymerize differently to form different zinc borate structures. The amine molecules act as a ligand by binding with the metal. The nature of the amine appears to control the dimensionality of the final zinc borate structures. The zinc borate compounds exhibit absorption of UV-light (λ = 365 nm) suggesting that the zinc borate compounds could be exploited for UV-blocking applications. Organically templated aluminoborates have connectivities between the Al3+ ions and the [B5O10] cyclic pentaborate units. The aluminoborate structures exhibit graphite layer and three-dimensional diamond structure. Detailed studies and comparison of the various amine templated open-framework aluminoborate structures reveals subtle relationships between the organic amines (shape and length of the amines) and the final framework structures. In Chapter 3, the synthesis, structure and catalytic studies of a variety of cadmium sulfate phases have been carried out. Polyazaheterocyclic ligands were employed to study their possible role in the formation of such structures. All the compounds have structures built up by the connectivity involving the cadmium octahedra and the sulfate tetrahedra in which the heterocyclic organic molecules act as the ligand. The connectivity between the Cd2+ and (SO4)2− ions form one-, two-and three-dimensionally extended cadmium sulfate phases, though the starting source is cadmium sulfate (CdSO4.8/3H2O) in all the cases. The connectivity between Cd2+ ion and the heterocyclic ligand also gives rise to one-and two-dimensional structures. The interconnectivity between the two units gives rise to the final observed structure. As part of the study, a variety of properties i.e. adsorption-desorption, photocatalytic degradation and cyanosilylation reaction, exhibited by the cadmium sulfate compounds have been investigated and the properties are comparable to the cadmium thiosulfate phases. AlPOs are well known for their many important properties. The wide varieties in their structures and heterogeneous catalytic properties have been extensively investigated. The photocatalytic behaviors, on the contrary, have not been investigated in detail. The photocatalytic properties of the metal-doped AlPOs, for the photodegrdation of organic dyes have been investigated in the Chapter 5. The metal ions (Mg2+, Zn2+ and Co2+) have been substituted in place of Al3+ and Ti4+ in place of both the Al3+ and P5+ in a variety in AlPO structures and the synthesized phases are characterized by a variety of techniques. Photodecomposition studies of organic dye molecules under UV-light were carried out in aqueous medium. The studies suggest that the photocatalytic activity is reasonable and appears to depend on the dopant concentration. Ti-substituted phase exhibits the maximum catalytic activity.