Proton exchange membrane fuel cells that were first used in the 1960s by the NASA
for the Gemini program are today considered as the best type of fuel cells as
power source for vehicles. Indeed, they are eventually expected to replace
the gasoline and diesel internal combustion engines, for they are considered to be
compact and of light weight, generating more power for a given volume, their ability to operate
at lesser temperatures, and change the power output rapidly. Making them a
commercial reality has, however, been delayed due to the non-availability of cheaper and more
effective materials for their manufacture. Nonetheless it has generated lot of interest
among researchers all over the world. Interestingly, the first article in this issue, "Preparation
of Proton Conducting Composite Membranes from Sulfonated Poly(Ether Ether
Ketone) and Silicotungstic Acid", talks about synthesizing a series of composite membrane
with different amounts of SWA as the inorganic material and sulfonated PEEK as the
polymer matrix, and studies their proton conductivity and other mechanical characteristics such
as durability, tensile strength, percentage elongation and methanol permeability. The
authors, Srinivasan Guhan and Dharmalingam Sangeetha, have found that methanol
permeability decreased with the increasing content of SWA. Similarly, tensile property as well
as percentage elongation were decreasing with the increasing content of SWA. They
have also analyzed the thermal suitability of membrane using TGA technique and found
that the membrane was thermally stable up to 250 °C, which is considered to be excellent
for the operation in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The conductivity
values—assessed by impedance spectroscopy—were also found to be good for application in
proton exchange membrane fuel cell.
The second article, "Identification and Simultaneous Separation of Six
Hydrophilic Therapeutic Vitamins by Micellar Thin Layer Chromatography", describes a novel
micellar thin layer chromatographic method developed by its authors, Ali Mohammad and
Sameen Laeeq, using 4% aqueous SDS + acetonitrile (1:2, v/v) for simultaneous separation
and identification of B-groom vitamins along with ascorbic and folic acids. The new
method developed by them was found to be a reliable analytical tool for the separation
and identification of hydrophilic vitamins in pharmaceutical formulation.
In the third article, "Interactions in Starch-Iodine Complex: Electrochemical
and Spectral Studies", the authors Kaushik Kundu and Kaushik Das claim that
though extensive studies were carried out in the past for understanding the nature of
starch-iodine complex, they were confined to the familiar blue complex. Hence to understand
more about the other complexes that iodine is known to form, the authors undertook
fresh studies on the interaction between starch and
I2 in aqueous medium in the absence of
I_ using cyclic voltammetry and visible absorption spectra. They have found that
Blue starch _I2 complex is electrochemically inactive. They have also observed the formation
of another complex between starch and uncharged
I2 molecule, whose stability constant
has been estimated at 2.62.
The fourth article, "Chemical Speciation of Ternary Complexes of Calcium(II)
and Magnesium(II) with L-Glutamine and Succinic Acid", by Vajhala L S N Murthy,
Kochu Govindan Sudarsan and Gollapalli Nageswara Rao, reports a pH-metric study of
the speciation of ternary of Gln and Suc with Ca(II) and Mg(II) in N, N'-Dimethy1
Formamide (DMF)—water mixtures of varying compositions. Their study throws light on the
metal availability in biofluids.
The fifth article, "IR and 13C NMR Spectral Correlations in Some Aryl Chalcones", by
G Thirunarayanan, R Rajavel, G Vanangamudi, D Kamalakannan, N
Kalyanasundaram and S Rohini, reports the correlation analysis of infrared deformation modes of
biphenyl and thiophene chalcones with s and
s+ constants.
In the last article of the issue, "Taste-Masking and Development of
Pediatric Formulation of Nalidixic Acid", the authors Shishu and Kashyap N claim to
have successfully developed taste-masking microspheres, using the pH sensitive
polymer Eudragit E-100 through solvent evaporation techniques. The authors have also
presented the panel data pertaining to taste evaluation by a panel of 20 healthy volunteers and
other parameters such as drug content.
-- GRK Murty
Consulting Editor
