Studies linking high trans-fat diets to coronary heart disease (CHD) have prompted the need to regulate, limit, or completely ban trans-fat from all commercial food products, including fast foods. Many U.S. fast food chains now claim that their food items, particularly French fries, have "no trans-fat". In a previous study, our lab tested the validity of trans-fat claims made by several popular fast food restaurants by experimentally determining the %trans-fat in oil extracted from fast food French fries. In some cases, the trans-fat content was nearly twice as high as the amount reported by the restaurant in their literature. Long John Silver & apos; s, for example, reported a trans-fat content of 25% for their French fries, while our lab actually found over 40% trans-fat. The purpose of this study is to broaden our study of Long John Silver & apos; s trans-fat claims by analyzing a variety of their food items and comparing our findings with the %trans-fat reported by the restaurant literature (nutrition fact tables). Variable Filter Array (VFA) IR spectroscopy was used to assess the trans-fat content of oil extracted from food samples. Our preliminary findings suggest that nearly every food item under study contained considerably more trans-fat than the amount reported in the restaurant’s literature.

In this paper, a rapid and simple approach was developed for the preparation of zinc pentacyanonitrosylferrate nanotubes (ZnPCNF NTs) within the cylindrical pores of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template by electrochemical method. The AAO was fabricated in two steps anodizing from aluminum foil. The first anodization of aluminum foil was performed in 0.2 mol L-1 H2C2O4 followed by removal of the formed porous oxide film by a solution of 6 wt% of phosphoric acid. The second anodization step was then performed using the same conditions as the previous step. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) method were employed to characterize the resulting highly oriented uniform hollow tube array which its diameter was in the range of 25-75 nm depending on the applied voltage and the length of nanotubes was equal to the thickness of AAO which was about 2 ?m. The growth properties of the ZnPCNF NTs array film can be achieved by controlling the structure of the template and applied potential across the cell.

Regioselective nitration of phenols using Sr(NO3)2 or benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate in the presence of H2SO4-silica had been realized under solvent free conditions. The reaction proceeds through the formation of nitronium ion, which attack the phenol ring preferential at ortho position in presence of Sr(NO3)2, forming mono nitrophenol. Para-orientation relative to hydroxyl group and mononitration of phenolic compounds was observed in the case of benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate. Some of the major advantages of this method are mild reaction conditions, high efficiency and regioselectivity of nitration and complementarity with other reported methods. In addition, benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate as nitrating reagent can be easily recycled.

Copper oxide nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by mechanochemical reaction, which is a green, low cost, solvent free, rapid method and followed by calcining treatment. Copper acetate monohydrate and urea were used as reagents and the resulted precursor was calcined at 500 ?C for 2h in air. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the formation of nanoparticles with an average size of about 86 nm. The Fourier transform infrared (FT–IR) spectrum and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) pattern of the product confirmed all of reflections can be indexed to pure phase of CuO with a monoclinic crystal system. The diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) showed a band gap of 1.7 eV.

An efficient one-pot synthesis of pyrano[2,3-c]pyrazoles via four-component reaction of phenyl hydrazine, ethyl acetoacetate, malononitrile and aromatic aldehydes, catalyzed by poly(4-vinylpyridine) is reported. This method provides many advantages such as, atom-economy, easy work up, clean procedure, short reaction times and high yields of products.