Efficient charge collection of photoanodes and light absorption of photosensitizers: A review

Abstract

Summary During the recent period of time, dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have become an exciting invention to meet our energy demands. Its reasonable cost of production and easy fabrication make it a powerful competent to the conventional solar cells. But non‐achievement of expected efficiency is the key challenge faced by the scientific society. To overcome this, boundless research is going on the revamping of DSSC. Among the four chief parts of DSSC, the photoanodes gain more attention due to its dual function. Scilicet, it act as a charge carrier and as a surface for dye adsorption as well. Hence photoanode modification plays a crucial role in enhancing the power conversion efficiencies of DSSCs. It comprises of wide bandgap semiconducting metal oxides, among which TiO2 stands out with higher efficiency. Likewise in the case of photosensitizers, metal complex based dyes (mainly ruthenium based) take the lead in augmented efficiency. This paper critically reviews the work on all the metal oxides used as photoanode materials, comparing their band gap with the best efficiencies reported for each and analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. An overview of the performance of DSSCs based on different metal atom doped metal oxide photoanode, incorporation of various carbonaceous materials and different passivating agents has been included. Also, the modification in the photosensitizer has been discussed, examining the reports on organometallics based dyes and metal free organic dyes.

Opportunities from Doping of Non‐Critical Metal Oxides in Last Generation Light‐Conversion Devices

“…MOSs like SnO 2 , [285] Nb 2 O 5 , WO 3 , and In 2 O 3 [286] have also been studied as photoanode materials in DSSCs but showed even less promise than ZnO despite a number of doping attempts to overcome problems of low band positions, fast recombination and low conductivity. Further, their availability is lower and the energy input is typically higher.…”

Organic Semiconductors as Photoanodes for Solar-driven Photoelectrochemical Fuel Production

“…It is important to note that the OSC inherently only performs the light absorption, exciton generation (see section 3.2 below) and charge separation/transport processes. [51][52][53] Unlike inorganic metal oxide photoanodes, the photogenerated hole at the OSC/water interface almost always requires the use of a water oxidation heterogeneous catalyst or a molecular catalyst (OERC) deposited on the photoanode to oxidize water, due to the kinetic complexity of the water oxidation reaction.…”

An Investigation on the Effect of Extended Conjugation on the Photophysical Properties of Graphene Quantum Dot‐Porphyrin Dyads

“…[2,12] Such type of carbon based nanosystems have demands in the field of photodynamic therapy, [13] photocatalysis [14] and in light harvesting. [15,16] Among these GQD based systems have been less studied, in spite of their highly commendable and tunable photophysical properties of GQD on par with other carbon nanomaterials and low cost of production. In 2018 Gao et al have studied on the disparate combination modes of three types of GQDs-porphyrin composites.…”