Amongst various sources of renewable energy, solar energy is becoming prime due to its advantages of cleanliness, abundance and low operating cost. Currently, amorphous silicon PV cells are most into commercialization but to contradict, they have a very high manufacturing cost and due to usage of hazardous materials, they lead to environmental degradation. Hence, they are less preferred now a days. To overcome these complications, Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are replacing customary cells at a very fast rate. In this research, fabrication of DSSC was done based polymer gel electrolytes prepared by in situ gelation. The ionic properties of the polymer gel electrolyte were also observed with the help of various tests performed like FESEM, FTIR, XRD & TGA. FTIR & XRD affirmed the good electron emission characteristics of the polymer electrolyte. XRD & TGA give amorphous nature and weight loss indication near 360 °C for cell based on polymer electrolytes. The performance evaluation of hence fabricated DSSC’s was done in terms of calculating efficiency, fill factor, current density (short circuit) and photovoltage (open circuit). The efficiency of the cell was found out to be 11.32% and fill factor came out to be 0.439.

Electrolytes have been considered a major component of DSSC and play a vital role in determining the ionic conductivity and efficiency of the cell. Emphasis was laid on the confirming the conductivity upon fabrication of an electrolyte using in situ gelation process from a newfangled combination of Triiodide (KI/I2/Glacial acetic acid/distilled water) and gel-based polymer electrolyte (Gelator: PMMA/THF/PC/EC) in the ratio 8:2. The electrolyte portion so framed generated a photo conversion efficiency of 11.32% and a fill factor of 0.439. The conductivity of the sample characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy showed that the uniform tracks confirmed extreme ionic conductivity of the blend electrolyte which showed dependance on the layered movement of PMMA- co- THF- KI2/PC/EC based electrolyte system. Energy Dispersive x-ray Analysis (EDX) reports engrained the percentage weight proportions of conductive elements (C & O with a wt% of 65.48 and 30.18 in one spectrum and K & I with a wt% of 44.7 & 35.25 in another spectrum respectively). FTIR test analysis was performed to identify the functional groups of the PGE which identified the ionic conductivity of the sample, shown by the intensity of peak absorbance in the range 400–4000 cm−1. Further it was observed, the conductivity of the different concentrations of the liquid and gelator solution demonstrated an increase in exhibiting ionic conductivity and the same was depicted by the morphological studies that featured dark pores of the sample which were spread consistently indicating the amorphous nature of the material (at room temperature).

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Organic Photo Voltaic cells such as dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are bringing about a revolution in the sustainable field. Better economic feasibility and decent efficiencies make it more eminent amongst the available products in the market. Reliability of these cells becomes an area of concern as environmental and electrical energy parameters wobble dynamically. The research article focuses on new techniques for observing the lifetime of a DSSC experiencing the impact of warning parameters like light source temperature, frequency, humidity and thermal stresses on working factors of DSSC such as Fill Factor, voltage, current and Efficiency. Optimization of prediction of failure for lifetime of the cell is done by Design of Experiment (DOE) methodology based on Taguchi’s model using Minitab 18.1 software. The health condition of fabricated dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) is monitored using Accelerated life testing as well as analytical method. Analysis shows that the mean lifetime of the fabricated dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) using the experimental method and analytical method is 18 488.67 h and 22 167.05 h respectively. The error analysis shows that the analytical method has 3.63% error, which confirms its accuracy as 96.37%.

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