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Abstract: Charge transport in a near infrared absorbing polyfluorene copolymer (APFO-Green1) and its blends with methanofullerene [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), and 3′-(3,5-bis-trifluoromethylphenyl)-1′-(4-nitrophenyl)pyrazolino[70]fullerene (BTPF70) is reported. PCBM and BTPF70 are electron acceptor and transporting molecules in polymer based solar cells. The BTPF70 has emerged as a new electron acceptor molecule that provides adequate exciton dissociation when blended with the low band gap polyfluorene copolymer APFO-Green1. Electron transport in both net PCBM and BTPF70 films are subjected to positional and energetic disorder, with the degree of disorder being more pronounced in BTPF70. On the other hand, mixing PCBM with conjugated polymers usually leads to increased hole mobility. We have investigated and compared the acceptor concentration dependence of charge transport in APFO-Green1/PCBM and APFO-Green1/BTPF70 blend films. For better understanding of the charge transport in the heterojunction films, the field and temperature dependence of hole transport in pure APFO-Green1 films has also been studied. It is observed that the behavior of hole mobility in the blend layer is sensitive to the acceptor type. For APFO-Green1/PCBM hole only devices, the hole mobility attains a local maximum at 67wt.% of PCBM, while on the contrary mixing any amount of BTPF70 with APFO-Green1 results into degradation of hole transport. Electron transport in both blends, however, increases monotonically as a function of acceptor loading. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Cellulose fibers can be freed from the cell-wall skeleton via high-shear homogenization, to produce cellulose nanofibers (CNF) that can be used, for example, as the reinforcing phase in composite materials. Nanofiber production from agro-industrial byproducts normally involves harsh chemical-pretreatments and high temperatures to remove noncellulosic polysaccharides (20-70% of dry weight). However, this is expensive for large-scale processing and environmentally damaging. An enzyme-only pretreatment to obtain CNF from agro-industrial byproducts (potato and sugar beet) was developed with targeted commercial enzyme mixtures. It is hypothesized that cellulose can be isolated from the biomass, using enzymes only, due to the low lignin content, facilitating greater liberation of CNF via high-shear homogenization. Comprehensive Microarray Polymer Profiling (CoMPP) measured remaining extractable polysaccharides, showing that the enzyme-pretreatment was more successful at removing noncellulosic polysaccharides than alkaline- or acid-hydrolysis alone. While effective alone, the effect of the enzyme-pretreatment was bolstered via combination with a mild high-pH pretreatment. Dynamic rheology was used to estimate the proportion of CNF in resultant suspensions. Enzyme-pretreated suspensions showed 4-fold and 10-fold increases in the storage modulus for potato and sugar beet, respectively, compared to untreated samples. A greener yet facile method for producing CNF from vegetable waste is presented here.