No abstract

Superhydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) PVDF-SiO 2 composite membranes with different % of SiO 2 contents were prepared by electrospinning. The surface morphologies of the membranes are characterized by using scanning electron microscopy. The nanofibers in the membranes were stacked in layers to produce fully interconnected pores that resulted in high porosity. The incorporation of SiO 2 into the nanofiber membrane improved the ionic conductivity from 0.2428 × 10 −4 Scm −1 to 7.731 × 10 −4 Scm −1 at room temperature. The surface roughness of the membranes increased with increasing the SiO 2 content, while the average diameter of nanofibers was rarely affected. Superhydrophobic PVDF membrane with a contact angle larger than 136˚ was prepared by the electrospinning of the SiO 2 functionalized PVDF. The surface composition of the membranes is analyzed by using FTIR and the contact angles and water drops on the surface of the membrane are measured. The contact angle experimental results of PVDF-SiO 2 composite membranes showed an improvement of hydrophobicity with % of nano SiO 2 .

Poly(vinylidene fluoride)‐polyacrylonitrile‐based membranes containing Fe2O3 nanoparticles were prepared by electrospinning technique and characterized by HR‐SEM, FTIR, and XRD analysis. The effect of electrolyte in the electrospun nanofibers on electrolyte uptake, ionic conductivity and porosity were studied. The electrospun membranes containing Fe2O3 showed an enhanced ionic conductivity than that of without Fe2O3. Among the prepared membranes, the membrane with 7 wt % Fe2O3 has the highest liquid electrolyte uptake of 562% and ionic conductivity of 6.81 × 10−2 S cm−1. The photovoltaic performance for open circuit voltage (Voc), Short‐circuit current density (Jsc), Fill factor (FF), and η of the DSSC fabricated with 7 wt % Fe2O3 are 0.77 V, 10.4 mA/cm2, 0.62 and 4.9%, respectively. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 41107.

No abstract

Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has been magnetizing more awareness in current research due to more efficiency. The foremost drawback of the solar cell is the evaporation of organic electrolyte. In order to address this problem, the polyvinylidene fluoridepolyacrylonitrile-Electrospinning Fibrous Membranes were prepared by electrospinning method and the photovoltaic performances were evaluated. The polyvinylidene fluoride and polyacrylonitrile were mixed in N,N 0 -dimethylformamide and acetone at an applied potential of 15 kV. The surface morphology of membrane is interconnected with network structure and a large number of voids were observed from Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy images. The electrolyte uptakes up to 310% were observed and it shows an increase in the ionic conductivity up to 6.12 3 10 22 S cm 21 at 25 C. The fabricated DSSCs show open circuit voltage (V oc ) of 0.74 V, fill factor (FF) of 0.65 and short circuit current (J sc ) of 6.20 mA cm 22 at an incident light intensity of 100 mW cm 22 . The photovoltaic efficiency also reached up to 3.09%.