Solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells based on Zn_1−xSn_xO nanocomposite photoanodes

Abstract

Solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (ss-DSSCs) comprising Sn 2+ -substituted ZnO nanopowder were purposefully tailored via a co-precipitation method. The solar cells assembled in this work were sensitized with N719 ruthenium dye and insinuated with spiro-OMeTAD as a solid hole transport layer (HTL). Evidently, significant enhancement in cell efficiency was accomplished with Sn 2+ ions-substituted ZnO photoelectrodes by maintaining the weight ratio of SnO at 5%. The overall power conversion efficiency was improved from 3.0% for the cell with pure ZnO to 4.3% for the cell with 5% SnO substitution. The improvement in the cell efficiency with Sn 2+ -substituted ZnO photoelectrodes is attributed to the considerably large surface area of the nanopowders for dye adsorption, efficient charge separation and the suppression of charge recombination provided by SnO. Furthermore, the energy distinction between the conduction band edges of SnO and ZnO implied a type II band alignment.Moreover, the durability as well as the stability of 15 assembled cells were studied to show the outstanding long-term stability of the devices made of Sn 2+ ion substituted ZnO, and the PCE of each cell remained stable and $96% of its primary value was retained for up to 100 h. Subsequently, the efficacy was drastically reduced to $35% after 250 h of storage. IntroductionGenerally, the most abundant source of renewable energy is solar energy. 1 To date, single and polycrystalline silicon solar cell technologies have dominated the solar cell market, representing an 80% share.2 However, their growth and mass production are restricted because of their high cost, large energy consumption and contamination generated from silicon-based solar cell fabrication. Therefore, many researchers have developed relatively inexpensive and eco-friendly dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) as a substitute for these devices.3 In this context, dye sensitized solar cells are the most favorable devices for efficient conversion of light to electricity because of their low production expenditure and simple fabrication.4-7 To date, the certied efficiency record for DSSCs is approximately 11.1% for a small cell, and large-scale tests have evidenced the great need for their commercialization. Furthermore, these cells are heavy, prone to leakage and have complex chemistry. 9,10 Accordingly, many attempts have been focused on the use of solid-state hole transporting materials (HTMs) to achieve practicability of DSSCs. In this regard, there are many different hole transport materials (conjugated polymers) including pentacene, 11 poly(triphenyldiamine), 12 polythiophene, 13 and poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT), 14 which can induce charge carrier generation in ss-DSSCs. The most widely utilized hole transfer layer (HTL) is 2,2 0 ,7,7 0 -tetrakis-(N,N-di-pmethoxyphenylamine)-9,9 0 -spirobiuorene, also known as a spiro-MeOTAD, 15 due to its ability to be deposited from solution using different techniques. In 1998, the rst solid-state DSSCs were developed by Bach et al.;16 they d...

Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells: Fundamentals and Current Status

“…Recently, Shazly et al fabricated the solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells based on Zn 1-x Sn x O nanocomposite photoanodes sensitized with N719 and insinuated with spiro-OMeTAD as a solid hole transport layer [ 161 ] and achieved highest efficiency of 4.3% with J SC = 12.45 mAcm − 2 , V OC = 0.740 V, and FF = 46.70. Similarly, by applying different techniques, like post treatment of photoanode, optimizing the thickness of the nc-TiO 2 layer, and the antireflective filming, Grätzel group reported η = 11.3% [ 32 ] for the device containing the dyes C101 and η = 12.3% [ 162 ] for Z991 dye-based DSSCs (molecular structure shown in Fig.…”

Microwave-assisted preparation of a silver nanoparticles/N-doped carbon dots nanocomposite and its application for catalytic reduction of rhodamine B, methyl red and 4-nitrophenol dyes

“…These organic pollutants are highly carcinogenic and toxic and can be harmful to human health and the environment. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Thus, to get rid of this hidden risk, the development of efficient treatment technology is necessary to fulll the ever-increasing demand for sustainable water. Several conventional approaches such as chemical, physical and biological processes have been tested to eliminate these pollutants.…”

Challenges and approaches towards upscaling the assembly of hybrid perovskite solar cells

“…2 These perovskite materials have different features such as high absorption coefficient, 3,4 high mobility, [5][6][7][8] long balanced carrier diffusion length, [7][8][9][10] and small exciton binding energy, 11 which make them auspicious candidates for the fabrication of these new kinds of solar cells. Besides, there are several kinds of solar cell systems similar to organic photovoltaics, 12 dye-sensitised solar cells [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and perovskite cells, [21][22][23][24][25][26] which intent to earn the benefit of the large-scale PSC modules with low fabrication cost. PSCs with a large active area of 1 cm 2 have only achieved almost 20% in the past few years, which confirms that the upscaling of the normal active area of 0.1 cm 2 of these kinds of cells is mandatory for the future modules of these kinds of cells as the active area is considered as an important factor for the detection of the net efficiency.…”