Structural and Optical Properties of Nanocrystalline TiO2 with Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes and Its Photovoltaic Studies Using Ru(II) Sensitizers

Sagar D Delekar; Ananta G Dhodamani; Krantiveer V More; Tukaram D Dongale; Rajanish K Kamat; Steve F A Acquah; Naresh S Dalal; Dillip K Panda

doi:10.1021/acsomega.7b01316

Structural and Optical Properties of Nanocrystalline TiO₂ with Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes and Its Photovoltaic Studies Using Ru(II) Sensitizers

ACS Omega. 2018 Mar 7;3(3):2743-2756. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.7b01316. eCollection 2018 Mar 31.

Authors

Sagar D Delekar^{1

2}, Ananta G Dhodamani¹, Krantiveer V More¹, Tukaram D Dongale³, Rajanish K Kamat⁴, Steve F A Acquah², Naresh S Dalal², Dillip K Panda^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 416 004 MS, India.
² Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 30306-4390, United States.
³ Computational Electronics and Nanoscience Research Laboratory, School of Nanoscience and Biotechnology, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 416 004 MS, India.
⁴ Department of Electronics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 416 004 MS, India.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, United States.

Abstract

In this study, the in situ sol-gel method has been deployed to prepare the titanium dioxide/multiwalled carbon nanotubes (TiO₂/MWCNTs) nanocomposite (NCs) powders with varying content of MWCNTs (0.01-1.0 wt %), to construct the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). First, binder-free NCs were deposited on a transparent-conducting F:SnO₂ (FTO) glass substrate by a doctor-blade technique and then anchored with Ru(II)-based dyes to either N719 or ruthenium phthalocyanine (RuPc). The structural and optical properties and interconnectivity of the materials within the composite are investigated thoroughly by various spectral techniques (XRD, XPS, Raman, FT-IR, and UV-vis), electron microscopy (HRTEM), and BET analysis. The experimental results suggest that the ratio of MWCNTs and TiO₂ in NCs, morphology, and their interconnectivity influenced their structural, optical, and photovoltaic properties significantly. Finally, the photovoltaic performances of the assembled DSSCs with different content of MWCNTs to TiO₂ films anchored with two different dyes were tested under one sun irradiation (100 mW/cm²). The measured current-voltage (IV) curve and incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) spectra of TiO₂/0.1 wt % MWCNTs (T@0.1 C) for N719 dye show three times more power conversion efficiency (η = 6.21%) which is opposed to an efficiency (η = 2.07%) of T@0.1 C for RuPc dye under the same operating conditions.