A high efficiency indoline-sensitized solar cell based on a nanocrystalline TiO₂surface doped with copper

Abstract

Dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical solar cells made from nanocrystalline films of TiO 2 doped with copper and sensitized with indoline 149 dye are found to have impressively higher efficiencies compared to equivalent cells made from undoped films. The surface concentration of copper atoms on the TiO 2 where this effect is optimized is nearly the same as the concentration of dye molecules on the TiO 2 surface. Copper doping shifts the flat-band potential of TiO 2 in the negative direction, which is favorable for increasing the open-circuit voltage of the cell. It is suggested that in addition to the linkage of the carboxylate ligand of the dye to the TiO 2 surface, moieties in the rhodanine rings of the dye coordinate to the copper atoms on the TiO 2 surface. The coordination of the dye to copper seems to have a positive influence on the efficiency of the cell.

Incorporation of Al-(hydr)oxide species onto the surface of TiO 2 nanoparticles: Improving the open-circuit voltage in dye-sensitized solar cells

“…This is not observed in the patterns obtained. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the Al is incorporated onto the surface of our samples in the form of Al-(hydr)oxide species, as reported previously for other dopants [15,16].…”

“…The introduction of metal oxides onto the surface of DSSCs, leading to improvements in some of their properties, has also been reported. For example, the introduction of CuO was found to improve the open-circuit voltage of cells [15,16]. Thus, this study presents the incorporation of Al-(hydr)oxide species onto the surface of TiO 2 , and its effect on DSSCs.…”

Ruthenium (Ru) Doped Titanium Dioxide (P25) Electrode for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Then 0.15, 0.3, 0.45 and 0.6 mol% of RuCl 3 •xH 2 O were added to the TiO 2 nanopowder (P25) and stirred vigorously for one hour at room temperature (step 1, 2) and then it was dried at 100 • C with continuous stirring for 2 hours (step 3). The product was ground well (step 4) and the resulting Ru-TiO 2 powder mixtures were annealed at 500 • C for 3 h (step 5) ( Figure 1) [26,35,37,38].…”

“…Various transition metals (Ag [19,20], Co [21], Mn [21], Zn [22], Cr [23], Nb [24], W [25], Cu [26], Y [27] and Sc [28]) have been used as dopant in TiO 2 . Ruthenium (Ru) appears to be a good dopant as the Ru 4+ ion has an ionic radius of 0.062 nm which is comparable to that of Ti 4+ ion (0.061 nm) [29].…”

The DV-Xα Molecular-Orbital Calculation Method

“…In DSSC, the effect of surface doping in TiO 2 nano electrode has been investigated and discussed for long time since the beginning of DSSC (Ko et al 2005;Wijayarathna et al 2008). The (MTi 10 O 34 ) 24--O a model for this calculation was built by replacing Ti atom on surface to a metallic atom (M) in surface model of (Ti 11 O 34 ) 24À -O a .…”