Physical, Thermal and Spectroscopic Studies of Biofield Treated p-Chlorobenzonitrile

What is it about?

Para-chlorobenzonitrile (p-CBN) is widely used as a chemical intermediate in the manufacturing of dyes, medicines, and pesticides, however; sometimes it may cause runaway reactions at high temperatures. The current study was designed to evaluate the impact of biofield energy treatment on the physical, thermal, and spectroscopic properties of p-CBN. The analysis was done by dividing the p-CBN samples into two groups that served as control and treated. The treated group received Mr. Trivedi’s biofield treatment. Subsequently, the control and treated samples were evaluated using various analytical techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface area analyser, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) and UV-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. The XRD results showed an increase in the crystallite size (66.18 nm) of the treated sample as compared to the control sample (53.63 nm). The surface area analysis of the treated sample also showed 14.19% decrease in the surface area as compared to control. Furthermore, DSC analysis results showed that the latent heat of fusion of the treated p-CBN increased considerably by 5.94% as compared to control. However, the melting temperature of the treated sample did not show any considerable change from the control sample. Besides, TGA/DTG studies showed that Tmax (the temperature at which the sample lost its maximum weight) was increased by 5.22% along with an increase in its onset of thermal decomposition temperature i.e. 96.80°C in the biofield treated p-CBN as compared to the control sample (84.65°C). This indicates that the thermal stability of treated p-CBN sample might increase as compared to the control sample. However, no change was found in the FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopic character of the treated p-CBN as compared to the control. These findings suggest that the biofield treatment significantly altered the physical and thermal properties of p-CBN, which could make it more useful as a chemical intermediate.

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Why is it important?

Aromatic nitriles have wide applications in the production of dyes, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. They are used as intermediates in the synthesis of various pharmacologically active compounds which are used as sedatives, muscle relaxants, neuroleptics, etc. [1]. They are also widely used in the synthesis of HIV-1 non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and the arylation of oxazoles and poly ether amides [2-4]. Benzonitriles are of great interest in the field of organic chemistry for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, natural products, herbicides, and agrochemicals. Substituted benzonitriles are also used in the synthesis of various drugs like chlorazepate, climazolam and loflazepate, etc. [5]. Many derivatives of benzonitrile are used in salt form as urinary antiseptics and in vapour form for disinfecting bronchial tubes. p-Chlorobenzonitrile (p-CBN) is also used for N-arylation on benzimidazoles [6]. The stability profile of any chemical compound is the most desired quality that determines its shelf life and purity to be used as an intermediate. The stability can be correlated to the physical, thermal or structural and bonding properties of a compound [7]. Currently, the stability of chemical compounds in pharmaceutical industries can be affected due to altering temperatures and pH conditions [8]. Moreover, many reactions in industries were carried out at high temperatures. Hence, the thermal stability is critical to ensure the safe handling of chemical compounds. The thermal stability is also considered in the processing, long-term storage or shipping of material. When a chemical has high stability, it is more resistant to breaking down or decomposition. The higher stability also helps to avoid runaway reactions [9]. However, benzonitriles are reported to cause runaway reactions during chlorination and cyanation reactions [10, 11]. Thus, it is important to search for an alternate strategy that can improve the stability of chemical compounds by altering their physical, thermal or structural and bonding properties. In recent years, biofield energy has been known for its impact on various living organisms and non-living materials. A biofield is the electromagnetic field that permeates and surrounds living organisms, and the energy associated with this field is known as biofield energy [12, 13]. According to existing theories, this biofield constitutes a dynamic living matrix of information, which is responsible for communicating information to and throughout the body. It is believed that any imbalance in this biofield energy leads to disease. The health of living organisms can be affected by balancing this energy from the environment through a natural exchange process [14, 15]. Biofield therapies are very popular in holistic medicine health care systems, and are included in the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is part of the National Institute of Health (NIH). NCCAM places biofield therapy (putative energy fields) as the subcategory of energy medicine among complementary and alternative medicines. [16, 17]. These healing treatments suggest their mechanism upon modulating patient-environmental energy fields. Thus, the human has the ability to harness the energy from the environment or universe and can transmit it to any living organism or non-living object. This process is termed as biofield treatment. Mr. Trivedi is well-known to possess a unique biofield energy treatment (The Trivedi Effect®) that has been significantly studied in different fields such as microbiology research [18-20], agriculture research [21,22], and biotechnology research [23,24]. Recently, it was reported that biofield treatment has changed the atomic, crystalline and powder characteristics as well as spectroscopic characters of different materials [25, 26]. Moreover, alteration in physical, thermal and chemical properties were also reported in materials like aluminium and ceramic oxide [27, 28]. Hence, based on above results the current study was designed to determine the impact of biofield treatment on physical, thermal and spectral properties of p-CBN.

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