Electrochemical characteristics of phthaloyl chitosan based gel polymer electrolyte for dye sensitized solar cell application

Abstract

In this project, a set of gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) was fabricated using Phthaloyl Chitosan (PhCh) as a host polymer, ethyl carbonate (EC) like a plasticizer, potassium selenocyanate (KSeCN) as salt, and selenocyanogen as redox mediators to fabricate the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The electrical properties of prepared GPE systems have been characterized by dielectric permittivity and electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Through the impedance spectra, the ionic conductivity of the GPE systems was evaluated at room temperature. It was observed that the ionic conductivity of PhCh-based GPE was increased with the increase of salt amount, and the uppermost ionic conductivity is 4.76 x 10-2 S Cm-1 was obtained from the maximum content of KSeCN:(SeCN)2 added salt. On the other hand, the increases of dielectric parameters (ε′, ε″) indicated that the rise of the dielectric polarization in GPE systems. The films were used to dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) to perceive the GPEs usefulness. For GPEs including KSeCN, the DSSC (n%) efficiency for the N3 dyes obtained was 2.28% with Jsc(6.19 mA/cm2), Voc(0.61V), as well as fill factor (0.60).