Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has been shown to be an effective measure for pain relief. The aim of the present study was to determine the optimal intensity and interval of repeated 100 Hz TENS for the treatment of chronic inflammatory hyperalgesia in a monoarthritic pain model of the rat, and to assess the changes of the spinal substance P (SP) release in response to TENS treatment. A reliable, reproducible chronic monoarthritic pain model was produced by intra-articular injection of complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) at single ankle joint. The efficacy of 100 Hz TENS treatments with different frequencies and intensities was compared. In the acute period (within 3 weeks) of monoarthritis, twice-a-week schedule of TENS reduced the swelling of the inflamed ankle significantly. In the stable period (4–9 weeks), however, once-a-week schedule produced a significantly better therapeutic effect on both inflammation and arthritic hyperalgesia than that of twice- or five-times-a-week schedule. Using three levels of intensity of TENS, we found that the weaker (1-1-2 mA) stimulation produced significantly better therapeutic effects. Repeated TENS produced a reduction of SP content in spinal perfusate in parallel with the progressive reduction of the arthritic pain scores. Our results suggest that (i) consecutive TENS treatments produced cumulative effect for chronic hyperalgesia, (ii) for chronic inflammatory hyperalgesia, a weaker intensity and more sparsely arranged treatment schedule may produce better therapeutic effect and (iii) a decrease in SP release may serve as one of the possible neurochemical mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of multiple TENS treatments on chronic inflammatory hyperalgesia.

In this work, a novel and facile sequential cation-exchanging strategy was developed to synthesize phosphorus doped g-C3N4 nanotubes, and resulted nanotubes were composed of small nanorods with length of several hundred nanometers by oriented aggregation. As obtained products exhibit greatly enhanced photocatalytic hydrogen evolution with rate of 4.59 mmol h-1 g-1, which is 16 times higher than that of the bulk g-C3N4 under visible light irradiation. Mechanism investigation reveals that the superior photocatalytic property could be attributed to its improved visible light absorbance, well suppressed charges recombination and nanostructural construction.

Vanadium doped, nitrogen doped, and vanadium and nitrogen co-doped SrTiO3 powders with size of 20-30 nm in diameter were prepared by high energy milling method respectively. It was found that compared with those of pure SrTiO3, the photocatalytic activities of these three doped SrTiO3 samples for decomposing NO under visible light (λ>400 nm) and near ultraviolet light (λ>290 nm) irradiation were improved, and the co-doped sample exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity. 43.2% NO could be eliminated under the irradiation of light with wavelength larger than 400nm, about 3 times higher than that by pure SrTiO3. The photocatalytic activity of this sample near ultraviolet range is about 1.7 times higher than that of pure SrTiO3. The high visible light photocatalytic activity of this substance may be due to the high visible light absorption and large specific surface area.

We reported a facile hydrothermal route for the preparation of WO3TiO2 composite nanoparticles (TWCNs) using waste WC-TiC hardmetal in the presence of hydrofluoric acid (HF). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analysis were employed for structural and composition analyses of the TWCNs. Our results suggested that HF was not only strongly involved in the growth of WO3, but also played a critical role in the etching effect for TWCN product. The photocatalytic activity of TWCNs was investigated by UV-vis spectroscopy. Dye molecules could be rapidly decomposed with TWCNs photocatalyst under visible light illumination. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is attributed to well matched band edge positions of WO3 and TiO2, and the large specific surface area of TWCNs in view of the incorporation of mesopores. The results presented here are expected to make a contribution toward the development of recycling waste resource delicately for photocatalytic water purification.

A systematic investigation of the fabrication process, microstructure and treatment technology of the Rare earth oxide doped Mo cermet (REO-Mo in brief) on the secondary electron emission (SEE) mainly has been performed. The REO-Mo samples were fabricated by liquid-liquid, Liquid-Solid and Liquid-Liquid doping method and subsequently by the Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) techniques. It was found that the uniform mixing of REO with Mo would have considerable benefit for enhancement of SEE coefficient (δ). Annealing the cathode in hydrogen (called as the pre-activation treatment) could greatly improve the SEE performance by removing the absorbed water and oxygen at the cathode surface which might cause the oxidation of molybdenum during cathode high temperature operation. It is found that the activation temperature of REO-Mo cathode annealed in hydrogen could decrease to 1000oC, about 300oC lower than that of the cathode without pre-activation treatment, which is favorable for the practical application.