Upcycling of Acid-Leaching Solutions from Li-Ion Battery Waste Treatment through the Facile Synthesis of Magnetorheological Fluid.

The rapidly growing production and usage of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) dramatically raises the number of harmful wastes. Consequently, the LIBs waste management processes, taking into account reliability, efficiency, and sustainability criteria, became a hot issue in the context of environmental protection as well as the scarcity of metal resources. In this paper, we propose for the first time a functional material-a magnetorheological fluid (MRF) from the LIBs-based liquid waste containing heavy metal ions. At first, the spent battery waste powder was treated with acid-leaching, where the post-treatment acid-leaching solution (ALS) contained heavy metal ions including cobalt. Then, ALS was used during wet co-precipitation to obtain cobalt-doped superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) and as an effect, the harmful liquid waste was purified from cobalt. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized with SEM, TEM, XPS, and magnetometry. Subsequently, superparamagnetic nanoparticles sized 15 nm average in diameter and magnetization saturation of about 91 emu g-1 doped with Co were used to prepare the MRF that increases the viscosity by about 300% in the presence of the 100 mT magnetic fields. We propose a facile and cost-effective way to utilize harmful ALS waste and use them in the preparation of superparamagnetic particles to be used in the magnetorheological fluid. This work describes for the first time the second life of the battery waste in the MRF and a facile way to remove the harmful ingredients from the solutions obtained after the acid leaching of LIBs as an effective end-of-life option for hydrometallurgical waste utilization.

What Do Children with Chronic Diseases and Their Parents Think About Pediatricians? A Qualitative Interview Study.

Objectives The aim of this study was to determine how pediatric patients and their parents perceive health care during hospital stays, what are their expectations of doctor behaviors, and which components of care do they consider to be the most important. Methods A qualitative descriptive study was carried out using the open interview technique. Twenty-six parents and 22 children undergoing hospital treatment participated. Results Our analysis identified two major themes: (1) doctor verbal and non-verbal behaviors, which included informing and explaining, conversations on topics other than the illness, tone of voice and other behaviors; and (2) perceived strategies used by doctors. This category included claims of doctors' intentional use of medical jargon to avoid addressing parental questions directly. Parents admitted that they did not understand medical vocabulary, but they also thought they might understand more of the medical issues if the doctor spoke using terms comprehensible to them. Conlcusions Our study shows the importance of interpersonal relationship affecting patient perception of quality of pediatric care. Parents of pediatric patients perceive that doctors behave in ways that deflect parents' questions and avoid providing them with medical information. Such behaviors include doctors excusing themselves by saying they are busy and using medical jargon. Medical students and doctors should be trained to communicate effectively with patients and their parents and develop skills to convey information in a simple and comprehensible way.

How hospitalized children and parents perceive nurses and hospital amenities: A qualitative descriptive study in Poland.

A qualitative descriptive design using an interview guide approach was adopted to investigate the patient-nurse relationship and paediatric ward amenities from the perspective of parents and hospitalised children in Poland. The study included 26 parents or caregivers of hospitalised children (between 13 months and 15 years old) and 22 children (from 10 to 16 years old). Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the recorded verbal data. Data from patients' transcripts were coded and classified in terms of topics on the patient-nurse relationship and hospital care. We identified five main topics. 1. Nurse qualities; 2. Nurse verbal behaviour; 3. Nurse tone of voice and non-verbal behaviour; 4. Hospital amenities; 5. Parents' expectations towards nurses. Our study contributes to increased understanding of parents' and children's experiences of paediatric hospital care.