High-yield, rapid and facile synthesis of elongated pure anatase titania nanoparticles has been achieved through a nonaqueous microwave-based approach. The residual organics onto nanoparticles surfaces were completely removed through a new treatment under ozone flow, at room temperature in air. Such an ozone cleaning method revealed an effective inexpensive dry process of removing organic contaminants from nanoparticles surfaces. The TiO2 elongated nanoparticles having a length of 13.8 ± 5.5 nm and a diameter of 9.0 ±1.2 nm were characterized by powder X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, selected area diffraction, BET surface area analyzer and FT-IR spectroscopy. Photocatalytic evaluation demonstrated that the as-synthesized ozone-cleaned TiO2 nanoparticles and TiO2 nanoparticles loaded with platinum possess excellent Rhodamine B performance with respect to both commercial spherical nanotitania P25 and P25 loaded with platinum. This could be attributed to the anatase phase purity, small size, large specific surface area and clean surfaces of the prepared nanoparticles.

OBJECTIVES. Cancer accounts for a major proportion of national health expenditures, which are expected to increase in the future. This paper aims to identify major challenges with estimating cancer related costs, and discuss international comparisons, and recommendations for future research. METHODS. It starts from the experience of an international workshop aimed at comparing cancer burden evaluation methods, improving results comparability, discussing strengths and criticisms of different approaches. RESULTS. Three methodological themes necessary to inform the analysis are identified and discussed: data availability; costs definition; epidemiological measures. CONCLUSIONS. Cost evaluation is applied to cancer control interventions and is relevant for public health planners. Despite their complexity, international comparisons are fundamental to improve, generalize and extend cost evaluation to different contexts.