Showing papers by "Jason E. Gestwicki published in 1999"
TL;DR: In this paper, a microwave reactor system that allows comparison of thermal and microwave-catalyzed reactions under conditions amenable to biological systems has been developed, and it has been shown that the rate enhancements provided by microwave irradiation are thermal in origin.
Abstract: Microwave energy has been shown to be able to induce drastic rate increase for certain reactions. These rate enhancements have been proposed to originate from non-thermal dynamics. However, these model system have often been studied under high pressure or temperature with little thermal control, and the model system studied have not been of biological significance. Considering the prevalence of microwave energy in the current environment, it would be of interest to study the ability of microwave energy to influence biologically relevant reaction rates. We have developed a microwave reactor system that allows comparison of thermal- and microwave-catalyzed reactions under conditions amenable to biological systems. To exemplify the usefulness of this methodology, we have studied both the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellobiose and the copper-bipyridyl mediated hydrolysis of phosphodiesters. We have shown that in these system and under these biologically significant conditions, the rate enhancements provided by microwave irradiation are thermal in origin.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.