A New Low-Temperature Fabrication Method of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
A new fabrication method of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is presented in this chapter. The traditional fabrication methods of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using high-temperature processes for working electrodes have been ameliorated. In the ne
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Abstract A new fabrication method of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is presented in this chapter. The traditional fabrication methods of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using high-temperature processes for working electrodes have been ameliorated. In the new method, TiO2 powder was ground with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for the fabrication of working electrodes and graphite powder was ground with PDMS for relative electrodes. The mixtures for both the working and relative electrodes were coated on ITO-glass substrates by the doctor blade technique. PDMS was able to enhance the adhesion of the film and the substrate as well as reduce film cracks. The process temperature of the proposed fabrication method was 150 C. The low process temperature allows the usage of the plastic substrate for the DSSC. This leads to the advantages of low costs and substrate flexibility. The proposed method demonstrates a promising future for the flexible applications of DSSCs. Keywords Low temperature • Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) • Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC)
1 Introduction The energy crisis is worsening in recent years because that several energy reserves are decreased all over the world. According to the statistics form 2012 BP Statistical Review of the World Energy, the total reserves-to-production ratio of the oil is about 54.2 years and those of the natural gas and the coal are 63.6 and 112 years, respectively [1]. In order to solve the energy problem, solar cells are the top choices
Y.-L. Lai (*) • S.-H. Chen • J.-H. Lu • J.-S. Ting • T.-Y. Tsai Department of Mechatronics Engineering, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua 50007, Taiwan e-mail: [email protected] J. Juang and Y.-C. Huang (eds.), Intelligent Technologies and Engineering Systems, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 234, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-6747-2_113, # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
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of green energies. There are many types of solar cells. Different types of solar cells have different efficiency values. The photoelectric conversion efficiency of siliconbased solar cell is able to reach 25 %, that of GaAs compound-based solar cells attends 28.8 %, and that of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is 11 % [2]. DSSC is a low-cost and low-pollution technology for solar cell industry. To make the porous TiO2, a sintering step at the temperatures higher than 450 C was used in traditional methods [3–11]. By the sintering process, the DSSC efficiency can attain to 9 % [6]. However, the high sintering temperature limits the substrates chosen because some substrates cannot suffer such high temperature. Only the substrates which can bear high temperature, such as ITO [12] and FTO [13–15] glasses, can be chosen. The glass substrates are, however, not flexible. This restricts the DSSC for flexible applications. For the use of flexible substrates like conductive plastics, the low-temperature (
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