Fulmar Litter EcoQO Monitoring in the Netherlands 1979-2008 in relation to EU Directive 200/59/EC on Port Reception Facilities

Operational and cargo related wastes from ships are an important source of litter in the marine environment in the southern North Sea and cause serious economical and ecological damage. Inadequacies in the ship to shore waste delivery procedures are considered a major factor in illegal discharges. The European Union therefore addressed the problem with the Directive on Port Reception Facilities (Directive 2000/59/EC). Obligatory waste delivery to shore and indirect financing of the costs are key-elements of the Directive to stimulate and enforce proper disposal of shipwaste in harbours. Monitoring the effect of the EU Directive is required. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of VenW commissions regular updates of Dutch data in the Fulmar-Litter monitoring database maintained by IMARES

All-solution processed regular organic solar cells using a new inkjet-printable cathode

The current developments in polymer organic solar cells are inspired by the idea that they can be processed entirely from solution. In all polymer cells the photoactive layer is processed from solution, most often the electrodes are not. Holst Centre has already developed a solution-processable anode, this project focusses on the development of a solution-processable cathode1 for solar cells with a "regular" configuration - that is, the cathode has to be processed on top of the other layers. To make a solution-processable cathode it is required to use high-workfunction metals which can be processed in the form of ink, like silver. When silver is used a cathode modification layer (Electron Transport Layer or ETL) is required. Out of several of materials for these layers that have been studied two were successful: zinc oxide (ZnO) processed from a nanoparticle dispersion in acetone and the polymer PFN which has been dissolved in ethanol. Solar cells with these ETLs and an evaporated silver cathode perform 12% lower than the reference design (with a LiF aluminum cathode). When comparing the reference design with an evaporated silver electrode without ETL the performance loss is 43%, thus the ETL significantly improves performance. The printing of silver on top of the ZnO layer was problematic because of crack formation. It was however shown that the principle worked, thus several methods were employed to prevent cracks. None gave reliable results. The layers were studied using AFM, conductive AFM, SEM and cross-sectional TEM. The printing of silver on top of PFN was successful: 35 out of 40 produced cells were working with the best performances reaching over 50% of the performance of the reference design. This success warranted the combination of the Holst anode with the new cathode to create all-solution processed devices with photovoltaic power conversion efficiencies reaching 1.95%.. - First prize Shell Bachelor Master 2012 "Organische zonnecellen : van lab tot fab". The current developments in polymer organic solar cells are inspired by the idea that they can be processed entirely from solution. In all polymer cells the photoactive layer is processed from solution, most often the electrodes are not. Holst Centre has already developed a solution-processable anode, this project focusses on the development of a solution-processable cathode1 for solar cells with a "regular" configuration - that is, the cathode has to be processed on top of the other layers. To make a solution-processable cathode it is required to use high-workfunction metals which can be processed in the form of ink, like silver. When silver is used a cathode modification layer (Electron Transport Layer or ETL) is required. Out of several of materials for these layers that have been studied two were successful: zinc oxide (ZnO) processed from a nanoparticle dispersion in acetone and the polymer PFN which has been dissolved in ethanol. Solar cells with these ETLs and an evaporated silver cathode perform 12% lower than the reference design (with a LiF aluminum cathode). When comparing the reference design with an evaporated silver electrode without ETL the performance loss is 43%, thus the ETL significantly improves performance. The printing of silver on top of the ZnO layer was problematic because of crack formation. It was however shown that the principle worked, thus several methods were employed to prevent cracks. None gave reliable results. The layers were studied using AFM, conductive AFM, SEM and cross-sectional TEM. The printing of silver on top of PFN was successful: 35 out of 40 produced cells were working with the best performances reaching over 50% of the performance of the reference design. This success warranted the combination of the Holst anode with the new cathode to create all-solution processed devices with photovoltaic power conversion efficiencies reaching 1.95%.. - First prize Shell Bachelor Master 2012 "Organische zonnecellen : van lab tot fab"

Zwerfvuil in de Noordzee: klein afval met grote gevolgen

Zwerfvuil in zee is een groeiend economisch en ecologisch probleem. Bij een opruiming van het Texelse strand in 2005 werd 30 ton vuil verwijderd, ruim 1000 kg per kilometer. Vervolgmmetingen toonden aan dat daar per kilometer strand iedere dag opnieuw 7 tot 8 kilo afval aanspoelde. De helft daarvan is hout, de rest bijna geheel plastic, touw en net, met als belangrijkste bron scheepvaart en visserij. Strandverontreiniging vormt samen met vastgelopen scheepsschroeven en vervuilde visvangst een jaarlijkse schadepost van miljoenen euro'

Plastic solar cells : understanding the special additive

Solar cells use freely available sunlight to make electricity. At the present time, solar electricity does not come cheap, because solar panels are rather expensive. Now imagine that we could reduce costs by printing solar panels like we print newspapers! We can do just that with plastic solar cells. In this article, we explain the basic working principles of these novel plastic solar cells and then show how a stunning threefold increase in solar energy efficiency can be achieved by including a special additive to the printing ink. The function of such a special additive seems almost magical, but as scientists we know that true magic is really rare and we simply had to find out why and how it works. That was the subject of our recent investigations and in this article we describe how we divulged the secret of the special additive

Fulmar Litter EcoQO Monitoring in the Netherlands 1979 - 2007 in relation to EU Directive 2000/59/EC on Port Reception Facilities

Operational and cargo related wastes from ships are an important source of litter in the marine environment in the southern North Sea and cause serious economical and ecological damage. Marine litter monitoring program using plastic abundance in stomachs of a seabird, the Northern Fulmar, was already operational in The Netherlands and was further developed also for international implementation by OSPAR as one of the 'Ecological Quality Objectives (EcoQOs)' for the North Sea (OSPAR 2008). Fulmars are purely oceanic foragers, ingest all sorts of litter from the sea surface, and do not regurgitate poorly degrading diet components, but slowly wear these down in the stomach. Accumulated hard plastic items in stomachs of beached Fulmars thus integrate marine litter levels encountered over a number of weeks in a particular area