Effects of Standardized Patient-Based Training on Surgical Nurses' Competencies for Managing Hand Injuries.

BACKGROUND: The competence of nurses who care for patients with finger replantation is critical for positive patient outcomes. This study sought to identify the effects of standardized patient (SP)-based training on surgical ward nurses' knowledge, clinical performance, and self-efficacy regarding finger replantation. METHOD: A wait-list control group with a crossover design was used for this study. Nurses were randomly assigned to group A (n = 10) or to the wait-list control group B (n = 10). Training consisted of a lecture, task training, and SP-based training. Knowledge, clinical performance, and self-efficacy data were collected at baseline, after the first intervention, and after 1 month at group crossover and second intervention. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: Nurses demonstrated greater knowledge, better clinical performance, and higher self-efficacy scores after the SP-based training. Following crossover, knowledge, clinical performance, and self-efficacy scores were retained 1 month after the training in group A. CONCLUSION: SP-based training produced improvement and retention in knowledge, clinical performance, and self-efficacy. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2020;51(4):189-196.].

Beneficiation and recovery of indium from liquid-crystal-display glass by hydrometallurgy.

Considering indium scarcity, the end-of-life (EOL) LCD, which accounts for up to 90% of market share can be a feasible secondary resource upon successful recycling. In the preferred hydrometallurgical process of such critical metals, leaching is the essential primary and essential phase has been investigated. In this process, LCD was mechanically separated along with other parts from EOL TVs through a smartly engineered process developed at our institute, Institute for Advanced Engineering (IAE), the Republic of Korea. After removing plastics and metals from the LCD, it was mechanically shredded for size reduction. The mechanically shredded LCD waste was leached with HCl for recovery of indium. Possible leaching parameters such as; effect of acid concentration, pulp density, temperature and effect of oxidant H2O2 concentration were investigated to identify the best conditions for indium extraction. Indium (76.16×10-3g/L) and tin (10.24×10-3g/L) leaching was achieved at their optimum condition, i.e. lixiviant of 5M HCl, a pulp density of 500g/L, temperature 75°C, agitation speed of 400rpm and time for 120min. At optimum condition the glass, plastic and the valuable metal indium have completely been separated. From indium enriched leach liquor, indium can be purified and recovered through hydrometallurgy.

Selective recovery of pure copper nanopowder from indium-tin-oxide etching wastewater by various wet chemical reduction process: Understanding their chemistry and comparisons of sustainable valorization processes.

Sustainable valorization processes for selective recovery of pure copper nanopowder from Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO) etching wastewater by various wet chemical reduction processes, their chemistry has been investigated and compared. After the indium recovery by solvent extraction from ITO etching wastewater, the same is also an environmental challenge, needs to be treated before disposal. After the indium recovery, ITO etching wastewater contains 6.11kg/m(3) of copper and 1.35kg/m(3) of aluminum, pH of the solution is very low converging to 0 and contain a significant amount of chlorine in the media. In this study, pure copper nanopowder was recovered using various reducing reagents by wet chemical reduction and characterized. Different reducing agents like a metallic, an inorganic acid and an organic acid were used to understand reduction behavior of copper in the presence of aluminum in a strong chloride medium of the ITO etching wastewater. The effect of a polymer surfactant Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), which was included to prevent aggregation, to provide dispersion stability and control the size of copper nanopowder was investigated and compared. The developed copper nanopowder recovery techniques are techno-economical feasible processes for commercial production of copper nanopowder in the range of 100-500nm size from the reported facilities through a one-pot synthesis. By all the process reported pure copper nanopowder can be recovered with>99% efficiency. After the copper recovery, copper concentration in the wastewater reduced to acceptable limit recommended by WHO for wastewater disposal. The process is not only beneficial for recycling of copper, but also helps to address environment challenged posed by ITO etching wastewater. From a complex wastewater, synthesis of pure copper nanopowder using various wet chemical reduction route and their comparison is the novelty of this recovery process.

Electrochemical Performances of Li2MnSiO4 Cathodes Synthesized by Mechanical Alloying Process.

We report the fabrication and electrochemical properties of Li2MnSiO4 powders produced by various solid-state reactions, such as ball-, attrition-, and bead-milling. Li2MnSiO4 powders prepared by bead-milling had the smallest particle sizes (~100 nm) and the largest amount of surface carbon (~20 wt%), which were produced by adding sucrose during milling process. The surface carbon layer can improve electronic/ionic conductivity of Li2MnSiO4 as cathode material for lithium ion battery. As expected, the bead-milled Li2MnSiO4 powder electrode showed the best electrochemical performance of the electrode materials obtained by the various solid-state reactions. This is attributed to the small particle size and facile electronic transport through the conductive carbon layer on each Li2MnSiO4 particle.

Materials flow analysis of neodymium, status of rare earth metal in the Republic of Korea.

Materials flow analysis of neodymium, status of rare earth elements (REEs) in the Republic of Korea has been investigated. Information from various resources like the Korean Ministry of Environment, Korea international trade association, United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database and from individual industry were collected and analyzed for materials flow analysis of neodymium. Demand of neodymium in the Republic of Korea for the year 2010 was 409.5 tons out of which the majority of neodymium, i.e., 68.41% was consumed by domestic electronics industry followed by medical appliances manufacturing (13.36%). The Republic Korea is one of the biggest consumer and leading exporter of these industrial products, absolutely depends on import of neodymium, as the country is lacking natural resources. The Republic of Korea has imported 325.9 tons of neodymium permanent magnet and 79.5 tons of neodymium containing equipment parts mainly for electronics, medical appliances, and heavy/light vehicles manufacturing industry. Out of which 95.4 tons of neodymium permanent magnet get exported as an intermediate product and 140.6 tons of neodymium in the form of consumable products get exported. Worldwide the neodymium is at the high end of supply chain critical metal because of increasing demand, scarcity and irreplaceable for technological application. To bring back the neodymium to supply stream the recycling of end of life neodymium-bearing waste can be a feasible option. Out of total domestic consumption, only 21.9 tons of neodymium have been collected and subsequently recycled. From material flow analysis, the requirement for an efficient recycling system and element-wise material flow management for these REEs in the Republic of Korea were realized and recommended.

Recycling process for recovery of gallium from GaN an e-waste of LED industry through ball milling, annealing and leaching.

Waste dust generated during manufacturing of LED contains significant amounts of gallium and indium, needs suitable treatment and can be an important resource for recovery. The LED industry waste dust contains primarily gallium as GaN. Leaching followed by purification technology is the green and clean technology. To develop treatment and recycling technology of these GaN bearing e-waste, leaching is the primary stage. In our current investigation possible process for treatment and quantitative leaching of gallium and indium from the GaN bearing e-waste or waste of LED industry dust has been developed. To recycle the waste and quantitative leaching of gallium, two different process flow sheets have been proposed. In one, process first the GaN of the waste the LED industry dust was leached at the optimum condition. Subsequently, the leach residue was mixed with Na2CO3, ball milled followed by annealing, again leached to recover gallium. In the second process, the waste LED industry dust was mixed with Na2CO3, after ball milling and annealing, followed acidic leaching. Without pretreatment, the gallium leaching was only 4.91 w/w % using 4M HCl, 100°C and pulp density of 20g/L. After mechano-chemical processing, both these processes achieved 73.68 w/w % of gallium leaching at their optimum condition. The developed process can treat and recycle any e-waste containing GaN through ball milling, annealing and leaching.

Enhanced low-temperature power density of solid oxide fuel cell by nickel nanoparticle infiltration into pre-fired Ni/yttria-stabilized zirconia anode.

The Ni/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anode morphology of an anode-supported solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) unit cell was improved by nickel nanoparticle infiltration. A colloidal route was selected for efficient fabrication of nickel metal nanoparticles and subsequent infiltration into the Ni/YSZ anode of a pre-fired SOFC unit cell. The power density of the anode-supported SOFC unit cell was measured by the potentiostatic method to investigate the effect of nickel nanoparticle infiltration. The increase in the power density of the Ni/YSZ anode with nickel nanoparticle infiltration became gradually less significant as the SOFC operating temperature increased from 700 to 800 degrees C. The improved performance of the Ni/YSZ anode with nickel nanoparticle infiltration compared to that of an anode without nickel nanoparticles is tentatively attributed to two factors: The discretely distributed nanoparticles on the nanostructured electrodes exhibited significant catalytic effects on the electrochemical performance of the electrodes, in addition to substantially increasing the triple phase boundary lengths.

Recovery of indium from used LCD panel by a time efficient and environmentally sound method assisted HEBM.

In this study, a method which is environmentally sound, time and energy efficient has been used for recovery of indium from used liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. In this method, indium tin oxide (ITO) glass was crushed to micron size particles in seconds via high energy ball milling (HEBM). The parameters affecting the amount of dissolved indium such as milling time, particle size, effect time of acid solution, amount of HCl in the acid solution were tried to be optimized. The results show that by crushing ITO glass to micron size particles by HEBM, it is possible to extract higher amount of indium at room temperature than that by conventional methods using only conventional shredding machines. In this study, 86% of indium which exists in raw materials was recovered about in a very short time.