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We appreciate the financial support from the Kempe Foundation and Bio4energy program, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through its project CTM2015-65348-C2-2-R and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through its project RTI2018-096042-B-C22., The use of highly toxic solvents presents significant risks to both the environment and human health. Therefore, the adoption of green solvents will be crucial for achieving sustainable membrane production. This work reports the use of inexpensive environmentally friendly biobased and biodegradable cyclic carbonate solvents, namely ethylene carbonate (EC), propylene carbonate (PC), and butylene carbonate (BC), to fabricate polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes. The solvent dependence of the phase inversion mechanisms, morphology, crystalline structures, and polymorphism of the prepared PVDF membranes were investigated. Polymorph analysis revealed that membrane fabrication in EC or PC yielded exclusively the beta-phase product, whereas PVDF membrane fabrication in BC yielded a mixture of alpha and beta phase material. The mechanism of beta-phase formation was investigated using molecular dynamics simulation and shown to depend on the extent of hydrogen bonding at the polymer-solvent interface. The PVDF membrane formed in EC exhibited the highest porosity and pure water permeability, and was therefore tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD), exhibiting promising results in terms of permeate flux and salt rejection. These results suggest that large-scale production of piezoelectric PVDF membranes using green solvents should be practically feasible., Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Kempe Foundation, Bio4energy program, Depto. de Estructura de la Materia, Física Térmica y Electrónica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

The use of highly toxic solvents presents significant risks to both the environment and human health. Therefore, the adoption of green solvents will be crucial for achieving sustainable membrane production. This work reports the use of inexpensive environmentally friendly biobased and biodegradable cyclic carbonate solvents, namely ethylene carbonate (EC), propylene carbonate (PC), and butylene carbonate (BC), to fabricate polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes. The solvent dependence of the phase inversion mechanisms, morphology, crystalline structures, and polymorphism of the prepared PVDF membranes were investigated. Polymorph analysis revealed that membrane fabrication in EC or PC yielded exclusively the β-phase product, whereas PVDF membrane fabrication in BC yielded a mixture of α and β phase material. The mechanism of β-phase formation was investigated using molecular dynamics simulation and shown to depend on the extent of hydrogen bonding at the polymer–solvent interface. The PVDF membrane formed in EC exhibited the highest porosity and pure water permeability, and was therefore tested in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD), exhibiting promising results in terms of permeate flux and salt rejection. These results suggest that large-scale production of piezoelectric PVDF membranes using green solvents should be practically feasible.

Sharare Ahmadi,1 Alireza Abdi,2 Mohammad Nazarianpirdosti,1 Fatemeh Rajati,3 Mahmoud Rahmati,2,3 Arsalan Abdi1 1Student Research Committee, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran; 2Nursing and Midwifery School, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran; 3Research Center for Environmental Determinants of Health, Health Institute, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, IranCorrespondence: Alireza AbdiNursing and Midwifery School, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, IranEmail A_abdi61@yahoo.comBackground: Nursing education programs are designed to decrease the gap between theory and practice. It is believed that internship programs can decrease this gap. An internship program has newly been implemented in Kermanshah Nursing School. However, the efficiency of this program has not been assessed. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore the challenges related to the internship education of nursing students.Methods: The study was conducted as qualitative research. The participants were eight nursing students who had at least one semester of experience in internship. They were selected through purposive sampling. Data gathering was done through semi-structured interviews, which were recorded and analyzed through a three-stage content analysis approach. For data management, MAXQDA-10 was used.Results: Out of the eight participants, three were male, and all were in the final year of their education. In total, 423 primary codes emerged after analyses, which were placed in seven categories, including: education before internship, lack of support, planning difficulties, interaction with staff, invisible evaluation, welfare defects, and professional identity.Conclusion: The study revealed the challenges of the internship program for nursing students in Iran. Some of the problems were related to educational background, others were associated with the shortcomings of the cultural aspects of the