Facile preparation of TiO 2 nanoparticles decorated by the graphene for enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cell perform
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Facile preparation of TiO2 nanoparticles decorated by the graphene for enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cell performance Reza Ghayoor1, Alireza Keshavarz1,a), Mohammad Navid Soltani Rad2 1
Nanophysics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz 71557-13876, Iran Department of Chemistry, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz 71557-13876, Iran a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] 2
Received: 10 January 2019; accepted: 27 March 2019
In this work, graphene and graphene oxide were synthesized by the modified Hummers method. In order to use graphene in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), TiO2–graphene was prepared by a simple chemical method and used in the DSSC photoanode at different concentrations of graphene to investigate DSSC performance. Utilizing the FE-SEM images, it was observed that accumulation of TiO2 nanoparticles disappeared and a different distribution of nanoparticles was formed on the graphene sheet. Moreover, the UV-vis spectra showed that TiO2–graphene nanocomposites can absorb a wide range of light in comparison with pure TiO2. Structural characterization of TiO2–graphene nanocomposites is confirmed by the FT-IR and Raman analysis. The results have shown that in the presence of graphene, the DSSC performance significantly improved by reducing the recombination. In addition, it has been shown that excess graphene concentration is not proper for DSSC performance. The best result for TiO2–graphene nanocomposite was obtained when the concentration of 1.5% graphene was applied.
Introduction Due to the population growth and global warming, the need for green and affordable energy is extensively felt. Dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are known as the third generation of solar cells, which was first reported in 1991 by Grätzel and coworkers [1]. The advantages of DSSC include the low-cost, simplicity for fabrication, and its relatively good efficiency, which have received considerable attention by many researchers [2, 3]. Among the components of the solar cell, the photoanode plays a key role in performance of DSSCs. An ideal photoanode involves the features such as high surface area to improve the dye absorption, good acceptor for electrons, the ability to absorb the wide spectrum of sunlight, the facility of dye’s diffusion, and so on. In early development of DSSCs, titanium dioxide (TiO2) and its various shapes are widely used in photoanode incorporation of DSSCs because of their high band gap and good stability [4, 5, 6]. However, the improvements in the DSSCs properties can be predicted by modifying the photoanode structure. Many studies have been carried out for
ª Materials Research Society 2019
employing the optimal photoanode to improve the DSSCs photovoltaic properties. The extensive efforts have been made by researchers to modify the photoelectrodes, which can improve the factors such as specific surface area for dye loading and preventing the recombination of carriers. The different photoanode structure was proposed to impr
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