Effect of TiO2 Particle Size on the Performance of Flexible Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2015 Sep;15(9):6675-9. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2015.11297.

Abstract

The size TiO2 nanoparticles was controlled by changing the concentration of titanium tetraisopropanolate (TTIP) and utilized as light scattering particles in the efficient flexible photoelectrodes for flexible dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The flexible photoelectrodes were prepared by TiO2 nanoparticles (-25 nm) paste with different concentrations of ethanolic TTIP solution. The addition of TTIP produced the bigger TiO2 nanoparticles, which significantly enhanced the dye absorption of flexible TiO2 photoelectrode. The fabricated flexible DSSCs showed the reasonable conversion efficiency of 2.50% with short circuit current (J(sc)) of 6.3 mA/cm2, open circuit voltage (V(oc)) of 0.720 V and fill factor (FF) of 0.55. The improvement in photovoltaic performance with 25 wt% TTIP might due to uniform distribution of small TiO2 nanoparticles over the big particles to lead the enhancement in the surface area, resulting in the high dye absorption and light harvesting efficiency.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't