A high-quality Sb₂S₃ thin-absorber with controllable thickness was reproducibly formed by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. Compared with conventional chemical bath deposition (CBD), the Sb₂S₃ absorber deposited by ALD did not contain oxide or oxygen impurities and showed a very uniform thickness of Sb₂S₃ absorbers formed on a rough surface of dense blocking TiO₂/F-doped SnOv (bl-TiO₂/FTO) substrate. The planar ALD-Sb₂S₃ solar cells comprised of Au/Poly-3-hexylthiophene/ALD-Sb₂S₃/bl-TiO₂/FTO showed significantly improved power conversion efficiency of 5.77% at 1 sun condition and narrow efficiency deviation, whereas the planar CBD-Sb₂S₃ solar cells exhibited 2.17% power conversion efficiency. The high efficiency and good reproducibility of ALD-Sb₂S₃ solar cell devices is attributed to reduced backward recombination because of the inhibition of oxide defects within ALD-Sb₂S₃ absorber and the conformal deposition of very uniform Sb₂S₃ absorbers on the blocking TiO₂ surface by ALD process.

Ion-imprinted chitosan Sargassum sp. a b s t r a c tTechnology for immobilization of biomass has attracted a great interest due to the high sorption capacity of biomass for sequestration of toxic metals from industrial effluents.However, the currently practiced immobilization methods normally reduce the metal sorption capacities. In this study, an innovative ion-imprint technology was developed to overcome the drawback. Copper ion was first imprinted onto the functional groups of chitosan that formed a pellet-typed sorbent through the granulation with Sargassum sp.; the imprinted copper ion was chemically detached from the sorbent, leading to the formation of a novel copper ion-imprinted chitosan/Sargassum sp. (CICS) composite adsorbent. The copper sorption on CICS was found to be highly pH-dependent and the maximum uptake capacity was achieved at pH 4.7e5.5. The adsorption isotherm study showed the maximum sorption capacity of CICS of 1.08 mmol/g, much higher than the non-imprinted chitosan/Sargassum sp. sorbent (NICS) (0.49 mmol/g). The used sorbent was reusable after being regenerated through desorption. The FTIR and XPS studies revealed that the greater sorption of heavy metal was attributed to the large number of primary amine groups available on the surfaces of the ion-imprinted chitosan and the abundant carboxyl groups on Sargassum sp.. Finally, an intraparticle surface diffusion controlled model well described the sorption history of the sorbents. ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. IntroductionBiosorption has been considered as a promising technology for the removal of low-level toxic metals from industrial effluents and natural waters (Volesky, 2007;Mehta and Gaur, 2005;Wang and Chen, 2009). Marine algae have received greater attention because of their high metal biosorption capacity, low cost, and renewable nature. They can effectively remove heavy metal ions with concentrations ranging from few ppm to several hundreds ppm. The maximum metal biosorption capacity ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 mmol/g biosorbent has been reported (Davis et al., 2003; Yang, 2005, 2006 A v a i l a b l e a t w w w . s c i e n c e d i r e c t . c o m j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / w a t r e s w a t e r r e s e a r c h 4 5 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1 4 5 e1 5 40043-1354/$ e see front matter ª

a b s t r a c tSorption of tetracycline and copper onto chitosan is systematically investigated in this study. The sorption of tetracycline and copper occurs rapidly in the first few hours and 90% of completed uptake occurs in the first 11-12 and 6 h, respectively. The sorption equilibrium of both contaminants is established in 24 h. The solution pH largely affects the sorption of both contaminants. The tetracycline uptake increases as pH is increased from 2.8 to 5.6, and 2.5 to 7 in the absence and the presence of copper, respectively. The presence of copper significantly improves the tetracycline adsorption likely due to the formation of cationic bridging of copper between tetracycline and chitosan. The maximum adsorption capacity and the adsorption affinity constant for tetracycline dramatically increase from 53.82 to 93.04 mmol kg À1 and from 1.22 to 10.20 L mmol À1 as the copper concentration is increased from 0 to 0.5 mmol L À1. The uptake of copper increases with an increase in pH from around 3.5-6.0 in the absence and the presence of tetracycline. The presence of tetracycline decreases the copper adsorption, which may be ascribed to the competition of tetracycline with copper ions for the adsorption sites at the chitosan surface. The adsorption isothermal data of both tetracycline and copper are fit well by the Langmuir equation. The maximum adsorption capacity and adsorption affinity constant of copper ions decrease from 1856.06 to 1486.20 mmol kg À1 and from 1.80 to 1.68 L mmol À1 in the absence and the presence of tetracycline. FTIR and XPS studies reveal that amino, hydroxyl, and ether groups in the chitosan are involved in the adsorption of tetracycline and copper.