Titanium tetrachloride (TiCl 4 ) treatment processed by chemical bath deposition is usually adopted as preand post-treatment for nanocrystalline titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) film deposition in the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) technology. Pre-treatment influences positively the bonding strength between the fluorinated tin oxide (FTO) substrate and the porous TiO 2 layer, blocking the charge recombination at the interface between the conduction glass FTO and the I 3 − ions present in the I − /I 3 − red-ox couple. Additionally, TiCl 4 posttreatment is a widely known method capable of improving the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells, in particular, the photocurrent collected from the device. In this study, the influence and effect of TiCl 4 pre-and post-treatment on the TiO 2 layer is proposed and compared to the untreated film. The relative DSC devices are characterized in terms of short circuit current density, open circuit voltage, fill factor, conversion efficiency and IPCE. The dark current characteristics of cells with a treated and untreated TiO 2 layer are also shown in order to evaluate the effect of TiCl 4 pre-treatment as a blocking layer.

We have designed and fabricated dye solar cell (DSC) modules with optimized geometries and processes. Integrated interconnections were made following the Z architecture for series connections. Several modules were prepared varying the materials, multilayer combination of the TiO2 active layers, and the fabrication processes. With the best combination of TiO2 multilayers, titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) treatment, a back reflector/diffusor, and optimized layout of cells via simulations, we fabricated a DSC module with a conversion efficiency of 6.9% on 43cm(2) aperture area and 9.4% on active area. This result confirms that an effective scale-up of high performance Z-series-connected DSC modules can be achieved comparable with other thin film technology. Note that the materials used to produce the devices of this work are all commercially available: an important result for a technology that is being developed for industrial application. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The formulation and the preparation of a TiO2 paste for dye‐sensitized solar cell technology are proposed. The TiO2 paste is characterized in terms of rheology, morphology, cross section, specific surface area, and average pore size. A conversion efficiency of 7.42% without any chemical treatment or scattering layer was obtained using the optimal thickness of 11 µm as carried out in this work. The results over different batches of the paste confirm the stability and the reproducibility. The characterization of the TiO2 semi‐transparent film is completed by investigating the dye adsorption saturation time after cyclic dye dipping steps through UV–Vis spectra measurements. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Over the past few years, dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) research has been focused on the material and process cost\ud reduction, and on the electronics integration of the devices.Monolithic design is one of the most promising DSC architectures for\ud mass production, because it allows the elimination of one conductive substrate and offers the possibility of printing layer-by-layer\ud the materials that compose the structure. In this study, the formulation, the realization, and the processing of the spacer and the\ud catalyst layers are proposed, and the relative performance in terms of J–V characteristics, incident photon to current conversion efficiency, and impedance analysis of the device with the optimized material thickness is reported. The optimized profile of the overall structure permits us to obtain masked cells with a conversion efficiency of about 5% with no chemical treatment

Since the introduction and development of the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) several efforts have been made to optimize the materials involved in the photo-electrochemical process and to improve the light conversion efficiency of the device , by exploiting a low cost production process based on simple fabrication methods, similar to those used in printing processes