The Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Stability and Performance Study Using Different Electrolytes
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The Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Stability and Performance Study Using Different Electrolytes Sailaja Radhakrishnan, Lakshmi V. Munukutla, Aung Htun and Arunachalanadar M. Kannan Arizona State University, Department of Engineering Technology, 6075 S. Williams Campus Loop, TECH Building, Mesa, AZ 85212, U.S.A. ABSTRACT The overarching goal of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) is to improve photovoltaic performance and their long-term stability for use in practical applications because of their simple fabrication technology at a reasonable cost. The focus of this paper is to achieve cell stability and also to improve solar energy conversion efficiency experimenting with different electrolytes. The electrolyte’s role is critical to sustain the DSS cell performance over time to instill cell stability. Four different electrolytes, Iodolyte R-150, AN-50, PN-50 and MPN-100, are experimented in this work for fabricating the dye-sensitized solar cells for studying both the stability and efficiency of the DSSCs. The electrolyte selection was made using the following key electrolyte parameters; lower viscosity for easier injection into the cell, lower vapor pressure and higher boiling point to minimize electrolyte evaporation, wide redox window to generate sufficient donating electrons to the dye, lower cost and non-toxicity. Electrolytes with higher concentration of Iodolyte were chosen for this study to widen redox potential window. These are Iodide based redox electrolytes and are made with 100 mM of tri-iodide in 3-methoxypropionitrile. The results of this investigation revealed that the cell with Iodolyte R-150 electrolyte achieved improved performance having an efficiency of 10.2% when compared to the reference cell efficiency of 8.4% with Iodolyte R-50. These cells were stabilized over a time of 4 weeks. The fill factor of the cell changed about 10% and the internal resistance decreased from 6.7 to 4.3 . The results of this experiment demonstrated reduced internal resistance, and improved fill factor contributed to higher cell efficiency and stability. The results of the work presented in this paper support the argument that electrolytes with higher Iodolyte concentration can enhance the cell efficiency and stability along with scaling down of the cell size. INTRODUCTION Michael Grätzel first demonstrated operation of the Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs), which are also known as Grätzel cells, in 1991, following the concept of the photoelectric effect. The DSSCs are treated as promising candidates for the next generation (third generation) of solar cells due to the lower fabrication cost and higher-energy conversion capability. The components of DSSCs comprise of two electrochemical electrodes with a sandwiched iodide-based electrolyte. The working electrode of the DSSC generally consists of titanium dioxide (TiO2) semiconductor layer, which is normally produced using the methods of sputtering, doctor bladed, sol-gel [1], spraying, or electrophoretic deposition [2-5]. The iodide is regenerated in turn by the reduction o
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