Fabrication of Spacer and Catalytic Layers in Monolithic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

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

A Comparison of the Utilization of Carbon Nanopowder and Activated Carbon as Counter Electrode for Monolithic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC)

“…The thickness of the carbon layer as the optimum counter electrode in the range 60-70 μm (to obtain low resistance) [9]. The thickness of the resulting carbon paste herein is thinner than the optimum thickness.…”

“…Therefore, the I-V characteristics and solar cell efficiency can be improved [9]. Table 2 shows that the lowest sheet resistance value was obtained by the carbon paste that uses activated carbon compared to the resulting sheet resistance value of carbon paste using carbon nanopowder are 10.70 Ω/sq and 11.09 Ω/sq.…”

Analysis of Catalytic Material Effect on the Photovoltaic Properties of Monolithic Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

“…The carbon paste was prepared according to a recipe published elsewhere [10], i.e. carbon black (150 mg) was mixed thoroughly with graphite (210 mg), P25 (310 mg), acetic acid (0.15 mL), and deionized water (2 mL) in a mortar.…”

“…The challenges that arise from such scheme is typically related to the spacer and counter-electrode material. Previous study showed that the thickness of both spacer and counter-electrode materials have significant effects on the performance of monolithic DSSC [10]. The type of catalytic material on the counter-electrode, however, has not been specifically discussed.…”

Optimum Design of Dye-Sensitized Solar Module for Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Systems

“…With the development of efficient dyes and electrodes with high catalytic activity, the certified efficiency of DSC has reached 11.9% with an active area of 1.005 cm 2 , . Recently, improving the module performance has gained increasing attention .…”