Effect of Modification Treatment on Chloride Ions Permeability and Microstructure of Recycled Brick-mixed Aggregate Concrete

The modification methods of pozzolan slurry combined with sodium silicate and silicon-based additive were respectively adopted to treat recycled coarse brick-mixed aggregate(RCBA)in this study.The compressive strength and chloride permeability resistance of recycled aggregate concrete(RAC)before and after modification treatment were tested,and the microstructure of RAC was analyzed by mercury intrusion porosimetry(MIP)and scanning electron microscopy(SEM).The results show that the physical properties of RCBA strengthened by modification treatment are improved,and the compressive strength and chloride permeability resistance of treated RAC are also significantly improved.The modification treatment optimizes the pore size distribution of RAC,which increases the number of gel pores and transition pores,and decreases the number of capillary pores and macro pores.The surface fractal dimension shows a significant correlation with chloride diffusion coefficient,indicating that the variation of chloride permeability of treated RAC is consistent with the microstructure evolution.

Effect of Modification Treatment for Reduction of Dephosphorization Slag in Hot Metal Bath

To extract the valuable elements from the steel slag, a novel approach has been proposed by modification treatment to provide the stronger driving forces and accelerate the reduction. Three types of dephosphorization steel slags were reduced using carbon-saturated iron bath to extract iron and phosphorus simultaneously. During the process of reduction, slag composition, temperature, and original P2O5 content were investigated respectively. Slag modification treatment, adding either silica or alumina to vary the slag composition, was proven to accelerate the reduction of dephosphorization slag. The equilibrium time can be shortened from 60 to 30 min. Slag modification also allowed the reduction reaction to occur at lower temperature. After slag modification, the original P2O5 content in slag presents a slight difference on reduction process. Almost half of the reduced phosphorus was vaporized within 5 and 20 min. As more and more FeO was reduced, CO gas generation decreased, and evaporation amount of phosphorus therefore decreases.

Effect of Modification Treatment on Inclusions in 430 Stainless Steel by Mg-Al Alloys

Refining process of 430 stainless steel in AOD （argon oxygen decarburization） was simulated under the experimental condition. Al was chosen as deoxidizer, Mg-Al alloy was added in process of refining, and slag used in oxidation period of AOD was chosen in the experiments. The variation of total oxygen content, the size, morphology and composition of inclusions in refining process and the mechanical properties, pitting corrosion resistance of final samples were studied. The results show that no obvious differences in total oxygen content were observed among all the experiments. Neither chain nor cluster Al_2O_3 inclusions were found in refining process of experiments treated by Mg-Al alloys, the average size of inclusions in the steel treated by Mg-Al alloys was less than that of inclusions in steel not treated by Mg-Al alloy. 430 stainless steel treated by Mg-Al alloy shows better tensile strength, yield strength, and pitting resistance than that in the contrast experiment.

Pulsation Treatment on the Modification of Crystal with Cold Simulation

Since the separation of crystal of KCl saturated aqueous is similar to the crystallization of liquid metals, the melts nucleation can be simulated by the experiment of the crystal of salt aqueous solution. In this experiment pulsation treatment was imposed on KCl saturated aqueous in order to study the effect of pulsation treatment on crystallization in the salt solution, and the influence of different pulsation treating time, super-heating and bine of prescription were investigated. The results show that it is possible to modify the crystallization over satured solution temperature and the degree of under-cooling for salt crystal separation was reduced by applying pulse treating on KCl saturated aqueous solution. In addition, this technology may generate embryos for nucleation even at the temperature over melting point or satured solubility.

Modification of autophagy-lysosomal pathway as a neuroprotective treatment for spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury （SCI） is one of the most common causes of long-term disability among young adults world-wide. In the United States, 12,000-20,000 new cases are reported annually and approximately half a million people currently live with SCI. Unfortunately, beyond surgery for immobilization of the spine and prolonged rehabilitation there are no effective treatments to improve functional outcomes after SCI. This is at least in part due to the complex and heterogeneous nature of injury after spinal cord trauma. The physical impact during SCI results in direct mechanical damage to some cells and tissues （primary injury）. Primary injury also sets off a cascade of widespread, progressive biochemical changes leading to further neuronal and glial cell death, neuroinflammation and glial scar formation （secondary injury） （Beattie et al., 2002）.

Effects of grain refining and modification on mechanical properties and microstructures of Al-7.5Si-4Cu cast alloy

Al-7.5Si-4Cu cast alloy melt modified by Al-5Ti-B, RE and Al-10Sr master alloys were poured in the chromite sand moulds, to investigate comparatively the effects of individual or combined additions of grain refiners and modifiers on the mechanical properties, microstructures, grain refining and modification, and intermetallic compounds of the alloy. The results show that the mechanical properties and the microstructures of Al-7.5Si-4Cu cast alloys are improved immensely by combining addition of 0.8%Al-5Ti-B, 0.1%RE and 0.1%Al-10Sr grain refiners and modifiers compared with the individual addition and cast conditions. For individual addition condition, addition of 0.8%Al-5Ti-B master alloy can obtain superior tensile strength, Brinell hardness and finer equiaxedα（Al） dendrites. The alloy with 0.1%RE master alloy shows the highest improvement in ductility because the rare earth can purify the molten metal and change the shape of intermetallic compounds. While the alloy with 0.1%Al-10Sr modifier shows only good improvement in yield strength, and the improvement of other performance is unsatisfactory. The Al-10Sr modifier has a significant metamorphism for the eutectic silicon, but will make the gas content in the aluminum alloy melt increase to form serious columnar grain structures. The effects of grain refining and modification on mean area and aspect ratio have the same conclusions obtained in the mechanical properties and the microstructures analyses.

Surface Modification of Polyimide Film by Dielectric Barrier Discharge at Atmospheric Pressure

In this paper,polyimide（PI）films are modified using an atmospheric pressure plasma generated by a dielectric barrier discharge（DBD）in argon.Surface performance of PI film and its dependence on exposure time from 0 s to 300 s are investigated by dynamic water contact angle（WCA）,field emission scanning electron microscopy（FESEM）,and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in attenuated total multiple reflection mode（FTIR-ATR）.The study demonstrates that dynamic WCA exhibits a minimum with 40 s plasma treatment,and evenly distributed nano-dots and shadow concaves appeared for 40 s and 12 s Ar plasma treatment individually.A short period of plasma modification can contribute to the scission of the imide ring and the introduction of C-O and C=O（-COOH）by detailed analysis of FTIR-ATR.

Capsule enteroscopy is useful for the therapeutic management of Crohn's disease

AIM: To analyze therapeutic changes in Crohn's disease(CD) patients following video capsule endoscopy(VCE) and to assess the usefulness of Lewis score and the Patency Capsule.METHODS: Patency Capsule was performed in every patient that had indication for VCE, and those with negative patency did not undergo VCE. Patients with established CD that underwent VCE between January 2011 and February 2014 were selected for this study; those with suspected CD were excluded, independent of VCE results, since our purpose was to address differences in therapeutic regimen in CD patients before and after VCE. Patients with inconclusive VCE were also excluded. Patients had to be free of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories for at least 1 mo. Those patients who met these criteria were allocated into one of three groups: Staging group(asymptomatic CD patients that underwent VCE for staging of CD), Flare group(patients with active CD), or Post-op group(CD patients evaluated for post-operative recurrence). Lewis score was calculated for every VCE procedure. Statisticalanalysis was performed to address the impact of VCE findings on the therapeutic management of CD patients and to evaluate the utility of the Lewis score.RESULTS: From a total of 542 VCEs, 135 were performed in patients with CD. Patency capsule excluded nearly 25% of the patients who were supposed to undergo VCE. No videocapsule retention during VCE was reported. From these 135 patients, 29 were excluded because CD diagnosis was not established at the time of VCE. Therefore, a total of 106 patients were included in the final analysis. From these, the majority were in the Staging group(n = 73, 69%), and the remaining were in the Flare(n = 23, 22%) or Post-op(n = 10, 9%) group. Median time between diagnosis and VCE was 5.5 years. Overall, VCE determined changes in the treatment of 40% of patients: only 21% remained free of immunosuppressors after VCE compared to 44% before VCE(P < 0.001). The differences in therapy before and after VCE achieved statistical significance in the Staging and Flare groups. In addition, patients were significantly different when stratified regarding time since diagnosis to the date of VCE. A higher Lewis score was associated with therapeutic modifications(P < 0.0001); where a score higher than 1354 was related to 90% probability of changing therapy [area under the receiver operative characteristic(AUROC) 0.80(95%CI: 0.69-0.88)]. CONCLUSION: VCE significantly changed the therapeutic management of CD patients, even in those with long-term disease. Systematic use of Patency capsule allowed for no videocapsule retention.

Research and application of Ti-Mn-based hydrogen storage alloys

Ti–Mn-based hydrogen storage alloys are considered to be one of the most promising hydrogen storage alloys for proton exchange membrane fuel cell applications,because of their good hydrogen absorption and desorption kinetics,low price,good activation performance,possession of high electrochemical capacity,and good cycling performance.The structure,performance characteristics,crystal structure of hydrides,development and application status of Ti–Mn-based hydrogen storage alloys were reviewed,and the methods to improve Ti–Mn-based hydrogen storage alloys were discussed:optimization of the preparation process,element substitution,and surface treatment.(1)In the study of the alloy preparation process,it was found that the use of the annealing process can significantly improve the high rate discharge performance,and cycling stability performance,increasing the maximum discharge capacity of the alloy electrode.In addition,using vacuum plasma spraying to prepare the electrode has better cycling stability and kinetic performance.(2)In element substitution,the effects of using Zr elements to partially replace Ti and Mn with Cr,V,Mo,and Fe on the hydrogen storage properties of Ti–Mn-based alloys were investigated.(3)In the study of surface treatment,palladium was plated on the surface of TiMn_(1.5) alloy by chemical deposition,and the strong affinity of palladium for hydrogen accelerated the cleavage of hydrogen molecules,which significantly improved the hydrogen absorption kinetics of TiMn_(1.5) alloy.Meanwhile,a new binary alloy system was formed by adding TiMn_(2) to MgH_(2),and it was shown that the addition of TiMn_(2) significantly improved the hydrogen absorption/desorption kinetics of the MgH_(2) alloy.Finally,the prospect of the application of Ti–Mn-based hydrogen storage alloys is presented,and the insight of further development of the alloy is offered.

Mechanism and Prevention of Disintegration of AOD Stainless Steel Slag

During the cooling process of AOD（argon-oxygen decarburization）stainless steel slag,the serious disintegrating problem happened,which will cause serious environmental pollution.The disintegrating mechanism of the AOD slag was analyzed in detail,and experimental research on prevention of disintegrating of AOD stainless steel slag was developed by adjusting the basicity of the slag and adding the quartz sand and borax.The disintegrating problem during the cooling process of AOD stainless steel slag is caused by the 2CaO·SiO2phase transformation fromα＇-C2S toγ-C2S.By means of adjusting the basicity of the AOD stainless steel slag from 2to 1.5by adding quartz sand,disintegrating of slag was prevented.But the adding amount must arrive at 15% which increases the difficulty of industrialization.Disintegration of AOD stainless steel slag can be effectively controlled by adding borax,and the adding amount is only 0.5%-0.8%.This method can be easily industrialized.

Removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from aqueous solution by raw and modified plant residue materials as biosorbents

Removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons （PAHs）, e.g., naphthalene, acenaphthene, phenanthrene and pyrene, from aqueous solution by raw and modified plant residues was investigated to develop low cost biosorbents for organic pollutant abatement. Bamboo wood, pine wood, pine needles and pine bark were selected as plant residues, and acid hydrolysis was used as an easily modification method. The raw and modified biosorbents were characterized by elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The sorption isotherms of PAHs to raw biosorbents were apparently linear, and were dominated by a partitioning process. In comparison, the isotherms of the hydrolyzed biosorbents displayed nonlinearity, which was controlled by partitioning and the specific interaction mechanism. The sorpfion kinetic curves of PAHs to the raw and modified plant residues fit well with the pseudo second-order kinetics model. The sorption rates were faster for the raw biosorbents than the corresponding hydrolyzed biosorbents, which was attributed to the latter having more condensed domains （i.e., exposed aromatic core）. By the consumption of the amorphous cellulose component under acid hydrolysis, the sorption capability of the hydrolyzed biosorbents was notably enhanced, i.e., 6-18 fold for phenanthrene, 6-8 fold for naphthalene and pyrene and 5-8 fold for acenaphthene. The sorpfion coefficients （Kd） were negatively correlated with the polarity index [（O＋N）/C], and positively correlated with the aromaticity of the biosorbents. For a given biosorbent, a positive linear correlation between logKoc and logKow for different PAHs was observed. Interestingly, the linear plots of logKoc-logKow were parallel for different biosorbents. These observations suggest that the raw and modified plant residues have great potential as biosorbents to remove PAHs from wastewater.