Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with the pathological hallmark of reduced nigrostriatal dopamine. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinical practice, the nanopowder of Cistanche tubulosa has therapeutic effects on PD. To identify the therapeutic mechanism, this study tested the protective effect of different doses of MPP+-induced toxicity in MES23.5 cells using the ...

Silicon nitride (Si3N4) is an industrial ceramic used in spinal fusion and maxillofacial reconstruction. Maximizing bone formation and minimizing bacterial infection are desirable attributes in orthopedic implants designed to adhere to living bone. This study has compared these attributes of Si3N4 implants with implants made from two other orthopedic biomaterials, i.e. poly(ether ether ketone) ...

Advanced engineered matrix composites (EMCs) require that the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the engineered matrix (EM) matches those of the fiber reinforcements as closely as possible in order to reduce thermal compatibility strains during heating and cooling of the composites. The present paper proposes a general concept for designing suitable matrices for long fiber reinforced com...

Optical detection of graphene on a specific substrate is important for the analysis of the physical or chemical properties of graphene. Si3N4, an oxygen free substrate with high dielectric constant, is a good candidate to replace SiO2. In this letter, we report the optimization of the Si3N4 thickness for efficient optical characterization by means of the contrast, enhancement factor (F), and th...

The residual stress field of HIPed Si3N4 rolling elements were studied. Two kinds of HIPed Si3N4 ball blanks self-finished at different nominal lapping loads ranging from 1.3kgf/ball to 10.87kgf/ball and four kinds of commercially finished 1⁄2′′ (12.7mm) HIPed Si3N4 balls before, during and after RCF tests were investigated. The experimental results showed that in the finishing process of HIPed...

Ni-Fe/Si3N4 nanocomposite coatings with various ratio of Si3N4 to Na-saccharine were prepared by electrodeposition technique. The effect of Si3N4 nanoparticulates in the Ni-Fe nanocomposite coatings was investigated in relation to the ratio of Si3N4 to Na-saccharine in the plating bath. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the Ni-Fe nanocomposite coating has face center cubic structure (FCC)....

Textured silicon nitride (Si3N4) has been intensively studied over the past 15 years because of its use for achieving its superthermal and mechanical properties. In this review we present the fundamental aspects of the processing and anisotropic properties of textured Si3N4, with emphasis on the anisotropic and abnormal grain growth of β-Si3N4, texture structure and texture analysis, processing...

pH was used as the main driving parameter for specifically immobilizing silicon nanowires onto Si3N4 microsquares at the surface of a SiO2 substrate. Different pH values of the coating aqueous solution enabled to experimentally distribute nanowires between silicon nitride and silicon dioxide: at pH 3 nanowires were mainly anchored on Si3N4; they were evenly distributed between SiO2 and Si3N4 at...

Forsterite ceramic is a new bioceramic with good biocompatibility. However, the degradation rate of forsterite ceramic is extremely low, and the apatite-formation ability is also poor. On the other hand, nanostructured bioceramics are expected to have better bioactivity than coarser crystals. The aim of this work was preparation, characterization and bioactivity evaluation of forsterite nanopow...

This work deals with sintering additives for the low temperature pressureless sintering of Si3N4, via a transient liquid technique. Much attention has been given to the development of a sintering process using low-cost Si3N4 powder (Silzot HQ, Germany) as the starting material and employing sintering additives which are also both economically attractive and enable sintering at low temperatures....