Dissociative recombination of protonated hydrogen cyanide HCNH+ is a very important process in dark interstellar molecular clouds. The dominant mechanism that drives this process, either ‘direct’ through a resonance, or ‘indirect’ through Rydbergs is currently an issue of controversy. Only qualitative conclusions for the branching ratio between the HCN and HNC fragments is available. We will re...

We quantified eight parent volatiles (H2O, C2H6, HCN, CO, CH3OH, H2CO, C2H2, and CH4) in the Jupiter-family comet Tempel 1 using high-dispersion infrared spectroscopy in the wavelength range 2.8 to 5.0 micrometers. The abundance ratio for ethane was significantly higher after impact, whereas those for methanol and hydrogen cyanide were unchanged. The abundance ratios in the ejecta are similar t...

Carbonyl sulfide (COS) is considered to be a major source of the stratospheric sulfate aerosol during periods of volcanic quiescence. We measured COS at the tropical tropopause and find mixing ratios to be 20 to 50% larger than are assumed in models. The enhanced COS levels are correlated with high concentrations of biomass-burning pollutants like carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN)...

We combine an external cavity diode laser with noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectroscopy (NICE-OHMS) using current modulation. With a finesse of 1600, we demonstrate noise equivalent absorption sensitivities of 4.1 x 10(-10) cm(-1) Hz(-1/2), resulting in sub-ppbv detection limits for Doppler-broadened transitions of CH(4) at 6132.3 cm(-1), C(2)H(2) at 6578.5 cm(-1) ...

Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes CECT5344 uses cyanide, cyanate, beta-cyanoalanine, and other cyanoderivatives as nitrogen sources under alkaline conditions, which prevents volatile HCN (pK(a) 9.2) formation. The cyanide consumed by this strain is stoichiometrically converted into ammonium. In addition, this bacterium grows with the heavy metal, cyanide-containing waste water generated by the jewe...

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), found in the rhizospheric region of plants, not only suppress plant disease, but also directly improve plant health by improving the availability of nutrients and by providing phytostimulants. Herein, we report the high-quality genome sequence of Serratia fonticola strain AU-P3(3), a PGPR of the pea plant, which confers phosphate solubilization, indo...

Spectrom Rev 2005; 24: 661–700. 6 Lee TW, Brownlee KG, Conway SP, et al. Evaluation of a new definition for chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in cystic fibrosis patients. J Cyst Fibros 2003; 2: 29–34. 7 Kumar S, Huang J, Abbassi-Ghadi N, et al. Selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry analysis of exhaled breath for volatile organic compound profiling of esophago-gastric cancer. Anal Chem...

The potential energy surfaces of acetyl cyanide and its functional isomer acetyl isocyanide in their electronic ground state have been investigated using ab initio molecular orbital MP2(FU)/6-311G** and QCISD(T)/6311G** calculations. The molecular eliminations of CH3COX (X ) CN,NC) to CH3X + CO, HX + CH2CO, and CH2 + HCOX, the unimolecular rearrangements to CH3C-OX and CH3O-CX carbenes, 1,3-hyd...

In this research, we aim to directly measure the specific activity (SA) of the carbon-11 cyanide ([(11)C]CN¯) produced by our in-house built automated [(11)C]HCN production system and to identify the major sources of (12)C-cyanide ((12)CN¯). The [(11)C]CN¯ is produced from [(11)C]CO2, which is generated by the (14)N(p,α)(11)C nuclear reaction using a cyclotron. Direct measurement of cyanide con...