Enhancement of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Efficiency Using Mixed-Phase TiO₂ Nanoparticles as Photoanode

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a potential candidate to replace conventional silicon-based solar cells because of high efficiency, cheap cost, and lower energy consumption in comparison with silicon chip manufacture. In this report, mixed-phase (anatase and rutile nanoparticles) TiO2 photoanode was synthesized to investigate material characteristics, carriers transport, and photovoltaic performance for future DSSC application. Field-emission scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL), and UV-visible spectroscopy were used to characterize mixed TiO2 particles. Subsequently, various mixed-phase TiO2 anodes in DSSC devices were measured by electrical impedance spectra (EIS) and energy efficiency conversion. The overall energy conversion efficiency of DSSC chip was improved as a result of the increase of rutile phase of TiO2 (14%) in anatase matrix. Synergistic effects including TiO2 crystallization, reduction of defect density level in energy band, longer lifetime of photoexcited electrons, and lower resistance of electron pathway all contributed to high efficiency of light energy conversion.

Charge Transfer in Mixed-Phase TiO2 Photoelectrodes for Perovskite Solar Cells

“…However, the best photoelectrical parameters were achieved for DSC based on the TiO 2 layer with the anatase/rutile ratio of 84/16% [19]. These results suggest the existence of another positive impact of rutile addition on the PCE that dominates the effect of the specific surface decrease [20]. Similar phenomena described in references [21,22] also confirms this suggestion.…”

“…Previously several studies were performed on the investigation of the dependence of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) performance on the anatase/rutile phase ratio in the nanostructured mesoscopic photoelectrodes [18][19][20]. It was found that the addition of the rutile to anatase in the range of 10-15% significantly improved light harvesting and the overall power conversion efficiency of DSCs [18].…”

Improved photovoltaic properties of dye sensitized solar cell by irradiations of Ni 2+ ions on Ag‐doped TiO 2 photoanode

“…The degree of recombination rates can be used to check the efficiency of electron transfers. High recombination center of pure rutile shows photocatalytic inactive in comparison with anatase 47 …”

“…High recombination center of pure rutile shows photocatalytic inactive in comparison with anatase. 47 Thin films of pure TiO 2 and 1% Ag-TiO 2 were successfully prepared using sol-gel technique. These films are irradiated by Ni ions.…”

The Way to Pursue Truly High-Performance Perovskite Solar Cells

“…When the exciton binding energy of LAMs is lower than the thermal energy, the planar thin-film structure can be used to construct the high-performance solar cells, such as the crystalline Si [6,7], crystalline GaAs [8,9] and crystalline InP [10,11] solar cells. When the exciton binding energy of the LAMs is higher than the thermal energy, the P:N nanocomposite thin-film structures have to be used to increase the photovoltaic performance, such as the organic bulk-heterojunction solar cells [12,13,14] and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) [15,16,17]. Although the PCE of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) and DSSCs is significantly lower than that of the planar thin-film inorganic semiconductor-based solar cells, the cost-effective OPVs and DSSCs still received a lot of attentions in the past two decades.…”