Nanostructured Two-Component Liquid-Crystalline Electrolytes for High-Temperature Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Nanostructured liquid-crystalline (LC) ion transporters have been developed and applied as new electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The new electrolytes are twocomponent liquid crystals consisting of a carbonate-based mesogen and an ionic liquid that self-assemble into two-dimensional (2D) nanosegregated structures forming well-defined ionic pathways suitable for the I − /I 3 − redox couple transportation. These electrolytes are nonvolatile and they show LC phases over wide temperature ranges. The DSSCs containing these electrolytes exhibit exceptional open-circuit voltages (V oc ) and improved power conversion efficiencies with increasing temperature. Remarkably, these solar cells operate at temperatures up to 120 °C, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest working temperature reported for a DSSC. The nature of the LC electrolyte and the interactions at the TiO 2 electrode/electrolyte interface lead to a partial suppression of electron recombination reactions, which is key in the exceptional features of these LC-DSSCs. Thus, this type of solar cells are of interest, because they can produce electricity efficiently from light at elevated temperatures.

Polymer electrolyte liquid crystal system for improved optical and electrical properties

“…Recently, Hogberg et. al reported two component liquid crystalline electrolyte for DSSCs [33]. The LC materials combined with ionic liquids working as a promising electrolyte for developing DSSCs.…”

“…According to Abdelaziz et al [33], the addition of a dopant in a polymer electrolyte will result in the decrease of the optical band gap which is attributed to the increase of disorder in the polymer electrolyte as the dopant is added. Interestingly, the optical band gap decrease at low dopant concentration (5 %) and starts to increase with higher dopant percentage.…”

Controlled Synthesis of Polyions of Heavy Main-Group Elements in Ionic Liquids

“…Owing to the distinctive physicochemical properties of ILs (wide liquidus range, high redox and thermal stability, negligible vapor pressure, and tunable polarity) and their advantages over organic solvents, classic melts, or solid state reactions, their applications include separation techniques [7,8,9], lubrication [10], electrodeposition [11], acting as electrolytes in photovoltaic devices (e.g., solar cells) [12,13,14], catalysis for clean technology [15,16,17,18], polymerization processes [19], crystal engineering of a wide range of inorganic substances [20,21,22,23,24,25], and syntheses of new inorganic materials in general [23,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51]. Recently, several comprehensive reviews on syntheses of inorganic compounds in ILs have been published by Taubert [52], Feldmann [28], Dehnen [51], Janiak [42,53], Scrosati and Passerini [48], Morris [54], Mudring [55], Prechtl [56], Zhu [57], Dai [58], and Ruck [23,27,59] among others.…”

Role of temperature in the recombination reaction on dye-sensitized solar cells

“…Recently, lead halide perovkite absorber combined with a solid hole transporting material (HTM) have ramped up efficiencies from 14.1 % 10 in 2013 to an impressive certified result of 20.1 % in the early of 2015 11,12 . Although DSCs and perovskite solar cells (PSCs) meet the efficiency criteria for market implementation, there is a striking lack of stability studies needed for technology industrialization [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] .…”