Efficient gel‐type electrolyte with bismaleimide via in situ low temperature polymerization in dye‐sensitized solar cells

This study reports the characteristics of gel‐type dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), fabricated with gel‐type electrolyte containing poly‐1,1′‐(methylenedi‐4,1‐phenylene)bismaleimide (PBMI), or poly‐1,1′‐(3,3′‐dimethyl‐1,1′‐biphenyl‐4,4′‐diyl)bismaleimide (PDBBMI), or poly‐N,N′‐(4‐methyl‐1,3‐phenylene)bismaleimide (PMPBMI), prepared by in situ polymerization of the corresponding monomer without an initiator at 30 °C. Incorporating 0.3 wt % content of exfoliated alkyl‐modified nanomica (EAMNM) into PBMI‐gelled electrolyte leads to higher short‐circuit current density (J_sc = 17.14 mA cm^?2) and efficiency (η = 7.02%) than that of neat PBMI‐gel electrolyte (J_sc = 15.32 mA cm^?2, η = 6.41%). Incorporating 0.3 wt % EAMNM into PBMI‐gelled electrolyte results in remarkably stable device performance under continuous light soaking under one sun (100 mW cm^?2) at 55 °C. The efficiency of DSSCs based on PBMI/0.3 wt % EAMNM‐gelled electrolyte drops by only 1.7% (η = 6.93%) after 500 h of continuous light soaking. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2010     

Properties and engineering of a mutantSTA promoter ofSaccharomyces diastaticus

A new allelic variant of theSTA2 gene ofS. diastaticus, designated asSTA2 ^K, was cloned and characterized (1; accompanying paper). An application-oriented analysis of the promoter region ofSTA2 ^K is described, with an emphasis on its peculiar structural feature: A 1.1-kb natural deletion located 189 nucleotides upstream of the translation start codon. The strength of theSTA2 ^K promoter was found comparable to that of known strong constitutive yeast promoters(ADH1, GAPDH). Regulated glucoamylase expression was demonstrated by chimeric promoters, which were constructed by placing theSTA2 ^K promoter under the control of either thePH05 orCYC1 upstream regulatory sequences. On high-copy-number vectors, induction of the UASpho5-STA2^K chimeric promoter by phosphate depletion resulted in a destructive overexpression of the secreted glucoamylase, which completely halted cell growth, and promoted cell decay. In contrast, UAScyc1 was shown to mediate a fine-tuned regulation both by glucose concentration and, indirectly, by starch, the substrate for the glucoamylase to produce glucose.