Co-electrophoretic deposition of TiO2 nanoparticulated hollow fibres/nanoparticles as crack reducers for dye-sensitized solar cell photoanodes

Highly porous electrodes (around 80% porosity) as photoanode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) were successfully prepared by electrophoretic deposition of TiO2 nanoparticles (NP) on FTO coated glass. It was observed that by increasing TiO2 film thickness, the size of microcracks increased noticeably. It was found out that co-deposition of TiO2 hollow fibres and TiO2 NPs would significantly reduce these microcracks. The active surface areas of the electrophoretically prepared composite films as well as the solar cell properties were investigated. It was concluded that co-deposited fibre/NP composite films have higher surface area and improved the solar cell efficiencies. Adding fibres up to 9wt% resulted in DSC’s photoelectric conversion efficiency of 2.01% which is 1.8 times higher than photoelectrodes without fibres.

کلیدواژه ها:

TiO2 ، electrophoretic deposition ، dye-sensitized solar cell ، microcracks