Search results for "Free Energy"
showing 10 items of 170 documents
Thermodynamics of pseudo-ternary systems as a tool to predict the morphologies of cellulose acetate/polystyrene blends cast from tetrahydrofuran solu…
2003
Abstract The demixing behavior of the ternary system THF/CA/PS (tetrahydrofuran/cellulose acetate/polystyrene) was investigated at 25 °C. Cloud point measurements show that the system exhibits a large miscibility gap caused by the incompatibility of CA and PS. Both ends of the experimentally determined tie lines are located inside the two-phase area of the phase diagram. By means of the measured critical composition of the ternary system and the Flory–Huggins interaction parameters published for two of the binary subsystems ( χ CA/THF =0.442 and χ PS/THF =0.475) the polymer/polymer interaction parameter was adjusted (directly minimizing the Gibbs energy) to χ CA/PS =0.057. These thermodynam…
New QM/MM implementation of the DFTB3 method in the gromacs package.
2015
The approximate density-functional tight-binding theory method DFTB3 has been implemented in the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) framework of the Gromacs molecular simulation package. We show that the efficient smooth particle–mesh Ewald implementation of Gromacs extends to the calculation of QM/MM electrostatic interactions. Further, we make use of the various free-energy functionalities provided by Gromacs and the PLUMED plugin. We exploit the versatility and performance of the current framework in three typical applications of QM/MM methods to solve biophysical problems: (i) ultrafast proton transfer in malonaldehyde, (ii) conformation of the alanine dipeptide, and (iii) el…
(Vapour + liquid) equilibria of (water + dimethylformamide): application of the headspace-gas chromatography for the determination of thermodynamic i…
1998
Abstract Isothermal measurements of the partial vapour pressures have been carried out on {water + dimethylformamide (DMF)} at temperatures betweenT=305.15 K andT=323.15 K using an apparatus composed of a headspace sampler and a normal gas chromatograph. These data were simultaneously evaluated in one step with respect to the (composition dependent, integral) Flory-Huggins interaction parametergby means of a new method which minimizes the Gibbs energy of mixing and does not require chemical potentials. The expression forggiven by Koningsveld and Kleintjens, originally designed for polymer solutions, describes the present results best.
Free energy and states of fractional-order hereditariness
2014
AbstractComplex materials, often encountered in recent engineering and material sciences applications, show no complete separations between solid and fluid phases. This aspect is reflected in the continuous relaxation time spectra recorded in cyclic load tests. As a consequence the material free energy cannot be defined in a unique manner yielding a significative lack of knowledge of the maximum recoverable work that can extracted from the material. The non-uniqueness of the free energy function is removed in the paper for power-laws relaxation/creep function by using a recently proposed mechanical analogue to fractional-order hereditariness.
The interphase model applied to the analysis of masonry structures
2014
Abstract Masonry material presents a mechanical response strongly dependent on the static and kinematic phenomena occurring in the constituents and at their joints. At the mesoscopic level the interaction between the units is simulated by means of specific mechanical devices such as the zero thickness interface model where the contact tractions and the displacement discontinuities are the primary static and kinematic variables respectively. In many cases the joint response depends also on internal stresses and strains within the interface layer adjacent to the joint interfaces. The introduction of internal stresses and strains leads to the formulation of the interphase model, a sort of enha…
Early stages of beta2-microglobulin aggregation and the inhibiting action of alphaB-crystallin
2008
The interest of nucleation of protein crystals and aggregates (including oligomerization) spans from basic physics theory all the way to biophysics, nanophysics, clinical sciences, biotechnologies, food technologies and polymer-solvent interactions. Understanding nucleation within a theoretical framework capable of providing quantitative predictions and control of nucleation rates, or even the very occurrence of crystallization, is a long-sought goal of remarkable relevance to each of the above fields. A large amount of work has been aimed at such goal, but success has been so far rather limited. Work at our laboratory has more recently highlighted a direct link between nucleation rates and…
Switch in Relative Stability between cis and trans 2-Butene on Pt(111) as a Function of Experimental Conditions: A Density Functional Theory Study
2018
International audience; The adsorption of cis and trans 2-butenes on Pt(111) has been studied as a function of hydrogen coverage OH by means of calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) with the inclusion of dispersion forces. All hydrogen coverages have been considered, from 0 to 1.00 monolayer (ML). For each case, the di-sigma and pi adsorption geometries of the olefins have been compared at a surface coverage of theta(C4H8) = 0.11 ML. Calculations of the Gibbs free energies of these systems have identified the most stable 2-butene isomer (cis or trans) as a function of coverage, temperature, and pressure. In particular, focus was placed on two sets of conditions, namely, one …
Thermodynamics and kinetics of ion permeation in wild-type and mutated open active conformation of the human α7 nicotinic receptor
2020
Molecular studies of human pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs) expressed in neurons and at neuromuscular junctions are of utmost importance in the development of therapeutic strategies for neurological disorders. We focus here on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor nAChR-α7, a homopentameric channel widely expressed in the human brain, with a proven role in a wide spectrum of disorders including schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. By exploiting an all-atom structural model of the full (transmembrane and extracellular) protein in the open, agonist-bound conformation we recently developed, we evaluate the free energy and the mean first passage time of single-ion permeation using …
Theoretical studies of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase inhibition
2012
Computational methods for accurately calculating the binding affinity of a ligand for a protein play a pivotal role in rational drug design. We herein present a theoretical study of the binding of five different ligands to one of the proteins responsible for the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) cycle replication; the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). Two types of approaches are used based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations within hybrid QM/MM potentials: the alchemical free energy perturbation method, FEP, and the pathway method, in which the ligand is physically pulled away from the binding site, thus rendering a potential of mean force (PMF) for the binding process. Our com…
Thermodynamic properties of some N-alkyl-N-methylpiperidinium chlorides and N-alkylpiperidine hydrochlorides in water
1993
Densities and heat capacities at 25[degrees]C were measured for N-octyl-, N-decyl- and N-dodecyl-N-methylpiperidinium chlorides and for N-octyl- and N-dodecylpiperidine hydrochlorides in water as functions of concentration. Enthalpies of dilution at 25[degrees]C and osmotic coefficients at 37[degrees]C of the N-methyl-N-alkylpiperidinium chlorides were also measured as functions of concentration. The partial molar volumes, heat capacities, relative enthalpies, nonideal Gibbs energies and entropies at 25[degrees]C were derived as functions of the surfactant concentration. By increasing the alkyl chain length of the surfactant, both the apparent molar volume vs. concentration curves are shift…