Sensitization of zinc oxide photoanode with an indoline dye

Abstract

A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) made of nanoporous ZnO film on aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO/AZO) transparent substrate has higher solar-to-electric energy conversion efficiency than a DSC consisting of nanoporous ZnO film deposited on conventional fluorine-doped tin oxide (ZnO/FTO) transparent substrate. The ZnO/AZO DSC gave an overall conversion efficiency of 7.2% whereas the ZnO/FTO yielded a conversion efficiency of 4.5%. The film-substrate orientation and higher light harvesting of the nanoporous ZnO film on the AZO after heating in air are mainly attributed to the higher energy conversion efficiency of the ZnO/AZO DSC.

Exploring zinc oxide morphologies for aqueous solar cells by a photoelectrochemical, computational, and multivariate approach

“…Indeed, ZnO-based photoanodes are susceptible to release Zn 2+ ions when they stay in prolonged contact with acidic groups in the electrolyte/dye solution. 63,64 The dye loading time (abbreviated as x 1 ) and the molar ratio between CDCA and D131 in the ZnO-sensitizing solution (x 2 ) were chosen as factors, i.e., the experimental variables of the DoE. This study was carried out for the DR morphology, and the results obtained were extended to the other typologies of ZnO samples investigated in this work.…”