Account of Structural, Theoretical, and Photovoltaic Properties of ABO₃ Oxide Perovskites Photoanode‐Based Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

The quality of human life in the modern era seems to be highly reliable on the technology advancements and energy consumption. [1] Globally, around 85% of the energy depends on nonrenewable sources which may extinct within next few years. [2] In this context, solar cells in specifically dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), which come under thin-filmbased third-generation solar cells, are considered to play a vital role of fulfilling the future energy needs by means of its proficient energy conversion potential, in addition to its lightweight, low-cost, reliable efficiency, multicolor options, and feasible for both indoor and outdoor applications. It is one of the most promising energy conversion devices from its technological discovery of early 1990s by Brain O'Regan and Michael Gratzel [3,4] In general, the working of DSSC depends on five major components, namely, 1) substrate, 2) semiconductor nanolayer, 3) the sensitizer, 3) redox electrolyte, and 5) counter electrode. The schematic representation of a typical DSSC with components is shown in Figure 1.Initially, the photosensitizer (dye) of the DSSC usually in its ground state and the illumination of light over the DSSC excite the ground state dye molecules from highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level to the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level (1), and then the electron from the LUMO level jumps over the conduction band of the semiconductor in 150 ps (2) and reaches the TCO. The holes produced during the excitation of dye molecules are scavenged by the electrons from the redox electrolyte (4) in 0.5 μs. The electrons reached the TCO then move to the cathode through the external circuit and power up the electrical load. Finally, the oxidized electrolyte gets reduced at the cathode (5) in 10 μs. [5,6] Besides these carrier-transport processes, some adverse reactions like nonradiative carrier-recombination paths will occur that desperately reduces the overall device performance. [7] Such unfavorable reactions are follows: nonradiative decay of immediate excitation of dye molecule to its ground state occurs in ns (6), plausible recombination of the electrons from the conduction band of the semiconductor material to the ground state of dye molecule occurs in ms (7), and to the electrolyte occurs in 100 ns to 1 ms (8), respectively. [8] The substrate for the photoanode and cathode is the most important component. Apart from this metal foil or polymeric film, transparent conductive oxide (TCO)-coated transparent glass substrate, such as fluorine-doped tin dioxide (FTO) or

A highly active Z-scheme SnS/Zn2SnO4 photocatalyst fabricated for methylene blue degradation

“…Generally, a capture experiment is performed to investigate the mechanism of photocatalytic degradation by photocatalysts. 58,59 For this purpose, different scavengers such as IPA (cOH scavenger), EDTA-2Na (h + scavenger) and BQ (cO 2 − scavenger) were introduced to evaluate the contribution of different active species to the photodegradation efficiency (Fig. 9a).…”

Holistically Optimizing Charge Carrier Dynamics Enables High-Performance Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Photodetectors

“…Generally, the device configuration of DSSCs is composed of photoanodes, sensitizers, electrolytes, and counter electrodes. Among the abovementioned components, the photoanode is important for the device performance owing to its crucial effect on modulating charge carrier dynamics, that is, photon harvesting, electron injection and transportation, and hole blocking . Shi and colleagues incorporated fluorescent carbon quantum dots into the titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) photoanode to improve the efficiency of DSSCs via prompting electron transportation, while the corresponding charge carrier recombination is slightly increased and results in a lower open-circuit voltage ( V oc ) for optimized devices .…”

“…Among the abovementioned components, the photoanode is important for the device performance owing to its crucial effect on modulating charge carrier dynamics, that is, photon harvesting, electron injection and transportation, and hole blocking. 8 Shi and colleagues incorporated fluorescent carbon quantum dots into the titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) photoanode to improve the efficiency of DSSCs via prompting electron transportation, while the corresponding charge carrier recombination is slightly increased and results in a lower open-circuit voltage (V oc ) for optimized devices. 9 Ogunsolu et al reported the metal-ion coordination strategy to increase the V oc of DSSCs via slowing charge recombination kinetics but sacrificing the dye regeneration rate, which leads to inferior efficiency for optimized devices.…”

Hoisting the photovoltaic performance by photocharging and plasmonic effect via aminosilane‐protected silver/barium titanate for dye‐sensitized solar cells

“…BaTiO 3 is an n-type semiconductor having the bandgap 3.2 eV. 12,13 At first, Zhong et al attempted to synthesize BaTiO 3 and employed as a photoanode in DSSC, achieved efficiency of 4.6%. 14 After that, many researchers have tried to improve the PCE further.…”

“…Among different examples of oxide perovskites like strontium titanate (SrTiO 3 ), calcium titanate (CaTiO 3 ), barium titanate (BaTiO 3 ), and BaTiO 3 ‐based photoanodes were not explored as much of in the previous literature. BaTiO 3 is an n‐type semiconductor having the bandgap 3.2 eV 12,13 . At first, Zhong et al attempted to synthesize BaTiO 3 and employed as a photoanode in DSSC, achieved efficiency of 4.6% 14 .…”