Sol-Gel Synthesis and Characterization of TiO2 Nano Films in the Building of Dssc

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) promise a short energy-payback time and offer a potential low-cost alternative to conventional photovoltaic devices based on semiconductors. This work describes the effort which has mainly been developed on DSSC solar cells with suitable dye for light harvesting and interfacial electron transfer processes with nano crystalline wide band-gap semiconductors. The photo anode preparation has been done by means of TiO 2 nano films by sol gel method using TTIP as precursor, and coated in ITO plate by doctor blading technique. The mesoporous TiO 2 thin film was characterized by XRD, SEM, and TEM. A novel unique combination of electrolyte is used (0.6 M of EMII, BMII and PMII, 0.1 M LiI, 0.05 M I2 in acetonitrile). The best performance was demonstrated by the DSSC having a 16μm-thick TiO 2 back electrode, which gave a solar energy conversion efficiency of 1.83% under the light of intensity of 100 mWcm -2 .