Enhanced Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell by the Novel Composite TiO 2 /POEM Photoanodes
- PDF / 637,317 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 30 Downloads / 229 Views
Enhanced Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell by the Novel Composite TiO2/POEM Photoanodes Chung-Te Liu1, Ying-Chiao Wang1, Rui-Xuan Dong1, Kuo-Chuan Ho1,2 and Jiang-Jen Lin1 1 Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan 2 Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan ABSTRACT A novel polymer dispersant, poly(oxyethylene)-segment imide (POEM) in the structure was incorporated in the nanocrystalline TiO2 film as the electrode. The uses of the dispersants could disperse TiO2 by decreasing the van der waals force among the nanoparticles, observed by TEM. The resultant TiO2/POEM film as the photoanode rendered the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) with enhanced performance. By comparing to the traditional photoanode composing of polyethylene glycol (PEG) dispersed TiO2, the POEM dispersed TiO2 provided large surface area and high roughness in the dye adsorbed film. Furthermore, the fabricated TiO2/POEM photoanode has a better light-scattering property which contributes to the improvement for the short-circuit current density (Jsc) and the power-conversion efficiency (η) of the DSSC to be 19.1 mA cm-2 and 8.7%, respectively. The performance is superior to 13.2 mA cm-2 and 7.34% for a DSSC with the photoanode containing TiO2/PEG. INTRODUCTION Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted extensive interests as a potential low-cost, clean, and renewable energy source [1]. The photoanode of a DSSC based on metal oxides such as TiO2, ZnO, and SnO2 has been prepared for a high performance DSSC. Among them, the TiO2 photoanode owing a high surface area benefits large amount of dye loading on it; thereby achieving a high photocurrent of DSSC assembled with the TiO2 photoanode. Nowadays, many researches focus on the effects of various structures of nanocrystalline TiO2, i.e., aligned singlecrystalline TiO2 [2], quasi-ordered arrays of TiO2 nanotubes [3], core/shell nanostructure [4], hollow spherical TiO2 [5], and nanosize-distributed TiO2 nanoparticles on the enhanced powerconversion efficiencies of DSSCs employing the photoanodes with these kinds of TiO2. Among them, a DSSC with a photoanode consisting of a mesoporous network of TiO2 nanoparticles delivered high performance. In this study, we have prepared a TiO2 photoanode by using a home-made polymer, poly(oxyethylene)-segmented imide (POEM). The TiO2 nanoparticles wrapped with the POEM polymers were dispersed well in the aqueous solution; thereby contributing high surface area and uniform pore size distribution of TiO2 nanoparticles after removing the POEM by annealing. Consequently, the power-conversion efficiency (η) of a DSSC with this photoanode has given a value of 8.69 ± 0.37% in comparison to that of a cell with a photoanode prepared by PEG (η = 7.34 ± 0.02%). The results were also substantiated by using an intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) and an intensity modulated photovoltage spectroscopy (IMVS). .
EXPERIMENT Titanium(IV) isopropoxide (TTIP) was h
Data Loading...
