A novel solid support adsorbent for CO2capture was developed by loading pentaethylenehexamine(PEHA)on commercially available mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41 using wet impregnation method.MCM-41 samples before and after PEHA loading were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction,N2adsorption/desorption,thermal gravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscope to investigate the textural and thermo-physical properties.CO2adsorption performance was evaluated in a fixed bed adsorption system.Results indicated that the structure of MCM-41 was preserved after loading PEHA.Surface area and total pore volume of PEHA loaded MCM-41 decreased with the increase of loading.The working adsorption capacity of CO2could be significantly improved at 60%of PEHA loading and 75°C.The effect of the height of adsorbent bed was investigated and the best working adsorption capacity for MCM-41-PEHA-60 reached 165 mg·(g adsorbent)-1at 75°C.Adsorption/desorption circle showed that the CO2working adsorption capacity of MCM-41-PEHA kept stable.
DNA and its conformational transition can be used to design nanometer-scale structures, nano-tweezers and nanomechanical devices. Experiments and molecular simulations have been used to study the concentration effect on the A-DNA→B-DNA conformational transition, but a systematical investigation on counterion effect on the dynamics of this transition has not been reported up to now. In present work, restrained and unrestrained molecular dynamics （MD） simulations have been performed to characterize the stability of DNA conformations and the dynamics of A-DNA→B-DNA transitions in aqueous solutions with different alkali metal counterions. The DNA duplex d（CGCGAATTCGCG）2, coion Cl- and counterions Li＋, Na＋, K＋, Rb＋ and Cs~ as well as water molecule were considered using the PARM99 force field in the AMBER8 package. It was found that B-form DNA is more stable than A-form DNA in aqueous electrolyte solutions with different alkali metal counterions. In- creasing KCI concentration in solution hinders the A-DNA^B-DNA transition and the transition times for different alkali metal counterions conform to neither the simple sequence related to naked ion size nor to hydrated diameter, but an apparently abnormal sequence of K＋ 〈 Rb＋ 〈 Cs＋ 〈 Na＋ 〈 Li＋. This abnormal sequence can be well understood in terms of an electrostatic model based on the effective cation diameters and the modified mean-spherical approximation （MMSA）. The present results provide valuable information for the design of DNA-based nanomaterials and nanodevices.
Unrestrained molecular dynamics （MD） simulations have been carded out to characterize the stability of DNA conformations and the dynamics of A-DNA^B-DNA conformational transitions in aqueous RbC1 solutions. The PARM99 force field in the AMBER8 package was used to investigate the effect of RbC1 concentration on the dynamics of the A^B conformational tran- sition in the DNA duplex d（CGCGAATTCGCG）2. Canonical A- and B-form DNA were assumed for the initial conformation and the final conformation had a length per complete turn that matched the canonical B-DNA. The DNA structure was moni- tored for 3.0 ns and the distances between the C5＇ atoms were obtained from the simulations. It was found that all of the double stranded DNA strands of A-DNA converged to the structure of B-form DNA within 1.0 ns during the unrestrained MD simula- tions. In addition, increasing the RbC1 concentration in aqueous solution hindered the A^B conformational transition and the transition in aqueous RbC1 solution was faster than that in aqueous NaC1 solution for the same electrolyte strength. The effects of the types and concentrations of counterions on the dynamics of the A^B conformational transition can be understood in terms of the variation in water activity and the number of accumulated counterions in the major grooves of A-DNA. The ru- bidium ion distributions around both fixed A-DNA and B-DNA were obtained using the restrained MD simulations to help ex- plain the effect of RbC1 concentration on the dynamics of the A^B conformational transition.
