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In this Communication, a self‐organization method of [6,6]‐phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid 2‐((2‐(dimethylamino)‐ethyl) (methyl)amino)ethyl ester (PCBDAN) interlayer in between 6,6‐phenyl C61‐butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and indium tin oxide (ITO) has been proposed to improve the performance of N–I–P perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The introduction of self‐organized PCBDAN interlayer can effectively reduce the work function of ITO and therefore eliminate the interface barrier between electron transport layer and electrode. It is beneficial for enhancing the charge extraction and decreasing the recombination loss at the interface. By employing this strategy, a highest power conversion efficiency of 18.1% has been obtained with almost free hysteresis. Furthermore, the N–I–P PSCs have excellent stability under UV‐light soaking, which can maintain 85% of its original highest value after 240 h accelerated UV aging. This self‐organization method for the formation of interlayer can not only simplify the fabrication process of low‐cost PSCs, but also be compatible with the roll‐to‐roll device processing on flexible substrates.

In this study, natural manganese oxides (MnO x ), an environmental material with high redox potential, were used as a promising low-cost oxidant to degrade the widely used dyestuff methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution. Although the surface area of MnO x was only 7.17 m 2 g −1 , it performed well in the degradation of MB with a removal percentage of 85.6% at pH 4. It was found that MB was chemically degraded in a low-pH reaction system and the degradation efficiency correlated negatively with the pH value (4–8) and initial concentration of MB (10–50 mg l −1 ), but positively with the dosage of MnO x (1–5 g l −1 ). The degradation of MB fitted well with the second-order kinetics. Mathematical models were also built for the correlation of the kinetic constants with the pH value, the initial concentration of MB and the dosage of MnO x . Furthermore, several transformation products of MB were identified with HPLC-MS, which was linked with the bond energy theory to reveal that the degradation was initiated with demethylation.

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A p-type TiO 2 with Ti vacancies (D-TiO 2 ) was synthesized by a facile solvothermal treatment, and Ag/TiO 2 with different Ag loading amount was prepared through a photo-reduction deposition method. The samples were characterized through scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The adsorption and photocatalytic characteristics of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) on D-TiO 2 and Ag/TiO 2 were investigated. The adsorption of TBBPA on Ag/TiO 2 was significantly enhanced and was five times greater than that of pure TiO 2 . The increase in pH significantly inhibited the adsorption of TBBPA. The 2%-Ag/TiO 2 nearly completely degraded TBBPA in 10 min under UV-Vis light (λ > 360 nm), and the apparent reaction rate constant (k app ) reached 0.63 min −1 . The significantly enhanced UV-Vis light catalytic properties of the Ag/ TiO 2 in comparison with that of TiO 2 were attributed to the increased adsorption capacity and electron transfer ability of the Ag/TiO 2 . Free radical trap experiments results showed that holes and superoxide radicals play a major role in the catalytic degradation of TBBPA by Ag/TiO 2 . Moreover, the Ag/TiO 2 catalyst exhibits high stability during TBBPA degradation even after three cycles. © 2019 Water Environment Federation • Practitioner points• Ti-defected TiO 2 and Ag/TiO 2 were synthesized using a solvothermal and photoreduction deposition, respectively. • Ag/TiO 2 exhibited outstanding adsorption and photocatalytic activity for TBBPA removal under UV-Vis light. • Holes and superoxide radicals play a major role in the photocatalytic degradation of TBBPA.•

Milk acetone determination by the photometrical method after microdiffusion and via FT infra-red spectroscopyMilk acetone (AC) and betahydroxybutyrate (BHB) are important indicators of the energy metabolism of cows (ketosis occurrence) and an effective method for their determination, with reliable results, is of great importance. The goal of this work was to investigate the infrared method MIR-FT in terms of its calibration for milk AC and to develop a usable procedure. The microdiffusion photometric (485 nm; Spekol 11) method was used with salicylaldehyde as a reference (Re) and mid infrared spectroscopy FT (MIR-FT: Lactoscope FT-IR, Delta; MilkoScan FT 6000, M-Sc) as an indirect method. The acetone addition to milk had no recovery using MIR-FT (Delta). The reference AC set must have acceptable statistics for good MIR-FT calibration (M-Sc) and they were: 10.1 ± 9.74 at a geometric mean of 7.26 mg l-1, and a variation range from 1.98 to 33.66 mg l-1. The AC correlation between Re and MIR-FT (Delta) was low at 0.32 (P>0.05 but the Log AC relationship between Re and MIR-FT (M-Sc) was markedly better at 0.80 (P<0.01). The conversion of >10 mg l-1 as an AC subclinical ketosis limit could be > -0.80 (feedback 0.158 mmol l-1 = 9.25 mg l-1) and > -1.66. This could be important for ketosis monitoring (using M-Sc).