From nanocorals to nanorods to nanoflowers nanoarchitecture for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells at relatively low film thickness: All Hydrothermal Process

Sawanta S Mali; Chirayath A Betty; Popatrao N Bhosale; Pramod S Patil; Chang Kook Hong

doi:10.1038/srep05451

From nanocorals to nanorods to nanoflowers nanoarchitecture for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells at relatively low film thickness: All Hydrothermal Process

Sci Rep. 2014 Jun 30:4:5451. doi: 10.1038/srep05451.

Authors

Sawanta S Mali¹, Chirayath A Betty², Popatrao N Bhosale³, Pramod S Patil⁴, Chang Kook Hong⁵

Affiliations

¹ 1] Thin Film Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India -416 004 [2] School of Applied Chemical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 500-757 (South Korea).
² Chemistry Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Trombay-Mumbai, India -400085.
³ Materials Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Shivaji University, Kolhapur M. S. India -416004.
⁴ Thin Film Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India -416 004.
⁵ School of Applied Chemical Engineering, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 500-757 (South Korea).

Abstract

Simple and low temperature hydrothermal process is employed to synthesize exotic nanostructures of TiO2. The nanostructures are obtained merely by changing the nature of the precursors and processing parameters. The chloride and isopropoxide salts of titanium are used to grow high quality thin films comprising anatase nanocorals, rutile nanorods and rutile nanoflowers respectively. A novel route of addition of room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) is used to synthesize hitherto unexplored nano-morphologies. The Bronsted Acidic Ionic Liquid [BAIL] 0.01 M, 1: 3-ethoxycarbonylethyl-1-methyl-imidazolium chloride [CMIM][HSO4] RTIL directed growth of TiO2 flowers with bunch of aligned nanorods are obtained. The structural, optical and morphological properties of hydrothermally grown TiO2 samples are studied with the different characterization techniques. The influence of these exotic nano-morphologies on the performance of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is investigated in detail. It is found that [CMIM][HSO4] can facilitate the formation of novel nanoflower morphology with uniform, dense, and collectively aligned in regular petal like oriented TiO2 nanorods and hence improves the dye adsorption and the photovoltaic performance of DSSCs, typically in short-circuit photocurrent and power conversion efficiency. A best power conversion efficiency of 6.63% has been achieved on a DSSC based on nanoflowers (TNF) film obtained from a [CMIM][HSO4] solution.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't