Synergistic effect of TiCl₄–ZnO treated TiO₂nanotubes in dye-sensitized solar cell

Abstract

Oxide semiconducting TiO 2 nanoparticles (TNPs) with TiO 2 nanotubes (TNTs) have attracted considerable attention because of a fast electron migration process in the photoelectrode. However, TNT films of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) displayed low conversion efficiency because of lower dye loading and sunlight absorption than in the case of TNPs films. For high-performance DSSCs, an aqueous solution treatment using titanium tetrachloride (TiCl 4 ) and zinc oxide (ZnO) was used on the TNT film. The TNT array was prepared by an anodization process. Herein, we studied that a double dip-coating TiCl 4 -ZnO treatment of the TNTs enhanced photocurrent density and fill factor due to an improvement in electron transfer, increase in dye adsorption, and reduction in the recombination charge rate. The results show that the DSSCs with a TiCl 4 -ZnO treatment show a maximum conversion efficiency of 8.29% and J SC of 21.19 mA/cm 2 under a simulated solar light irradiation of 100 mW/cm 2 (AM 1.5).

CHARACTERIZATION OF ZnO NANOFIBER ON DOUBLE-LAYER DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS USING DIRECT DEPOSITION METHOD

“…As a result, it had a better dye loading ability, which was 1.25 × 10 -7 mol/cm 2 . A high absorbance value increases the current density (JSC), which affects the efficiency of the DSSCs (Lee et al, 2015). As the dye trend we used is at a wavelengths of 450-550 nm, the transmittance value is inversely proportional to the absorbance value (Marimuthu et al, 2017).…”