Preparation of Al2O3–SiO2 composite aerogels and their Cu2+absorption properties

In order to remediate heavy metal ions from waste water,Al2O3–SiO2 composite aerogels are prepared via a sol–gel and an organic solvent sublimation drying method.Various characterisation techniques have been employed including X-ray diffraction(XRD),Fourier transform infrared spectrometry(FTIR),scanning electron microscope(SEM),Energy-dispersion X-ray spectroscopy(EDX),Brunauer–Emmett–Teller(BET)N2 adsoprtion isotherm,and atomic absorption spectrometer(AAS).XRD and FTIR suggest that the aerogels are composed of mainly Al2O3 and minor SiO2.They have a high specific surface area(827.544 m^2/g)and high porosity(86.0%)with a pore diameter of~20 nm.Their microstructures show that the distribution of Al,Si,and O is homogeneous.The aerogels can remove~99%Cu^2+within~40 min and then reach the equilibrium uptake(~69 mg/g).Preliminary calculations show that the Cu2+uptake by the aerogels follows pseudo second-order kinetics where chemical sorption may take effect owing largely to the high surface area,high porosity,and abundant functional groups,such as Al–OH and Si–OH,in the aerogel network.The prepared aerogels may serve as efficient absorbents for Cu^2+removal.

Photoinduced degradation of organic solar cells with different microstructures

An in situ measurement setup is established to investigate the photoinduced degradation effects in a controllable inert gas ambient environment for the two different microstructures of poly（3-hexylthiophene） （P3HT） and [6,6]-phenyl-C61- butyricacid methyl ester （PCBM） bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells. The two devices are fabricated with the solvent vapor drying process followed by a thermal annealing （vapor drying device） and only a normal thermal annealing process （control device）, respectively. Their power conversion efficiencies （PCEs） and aging features are compared. Their different degradation behaviors in light absorption are confirmed. In addition, irradiation-induced changes in both nanostructure and surface morphology of the P3HT：PCBM blend films treated with two different fabrication processes are observed through scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Aggregated bulbs are observed at the surfaces for control devices after light irradiation for 50 h, while the vapor drying devices exhibit smooth film surfaces, and the corresponding device features are not easy to degrade under the aging measurement. Thus the devices having solvent vapor drying and thermal annealing show better device stabilities than those having only the thermal annealing process.