RESUMEN
Hydroxamic acids (HAs) perform tasks in medicine and industry that require bidentate metal binding. The two favored conformations of HAs are related by rotation around the C(=O)-N bond. The conformations are unequal in stability. Recently, we reported that the most stable conformation of a small secondary HA in water places the oxygen atoms anti to one another. The barrier to C-N bond rotation may therefore modulate metal binding by secondary HAs in aqueous media. We have now determined the activation barrier to C-N rotation from major to minor conformation of a small secondary HA in D2O to be 67.3 kJ/mol. The HA rotational barrier scales with solvent polarity, as is observed in amides, although the HA barrier is less than that of a comparable tertiary amide in aqueous solution. Successful design of new secondary HAs to perform specific tasks requires solid understanding of rules governing HA structural behavior. Results from this work provide a more complete foundation for HA design efforts.
RESUMEN
This study compared recovery of fecal coliform bacteria from sewage by Colilert-18 and Standard Methods 9222D (membrane-Fecal Coliform medium) in accordance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Alternative Test Protocol (ATP). Samples were collected from 10 different wastewater treatment plants in the northeastern United States and tested in a single laboratory. Twenty replicates of each sample were analyzed by each method, and 200 positive and 200 negative responses were confirmed for each method. Recovery of fecal coliforms by Colilert-18 was significantly higher than (8 of 10 sites) or statistically equivalent to (1 of 10 sites) recovery by the reference method (Standard Methods 9222D) for samples from all but one site. Both methods had low false-positive rates (< 2%); however, the false-negative rate observed with Standard Methods 9222D (21.5%) was substantially higher than that observed with Colilert-18 (7%). The accuracy rates of the two methods were calculated as 96.5 and 88.9% for Colilert-18 and Standard Methods 9222D, respectively. The results of this study demonstrate that Colilert-18 meets the acceptance criteria for alternative methods specified in the EPA ATP.