Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) Based on ZnO Non-and Vertically Aligned Nanorod Structures (original) (raw)
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DSSCs performance can be enhanced by modifying the morphology of photoelectrode. Titanium dioxide, TiO2, is the most used oxide semiconductors for DSSC photoelectrode. Anatase and rutile TiO2 are widely explored in DSSC for high photocatalytic activity and high light scattering ability, respectively. However, ZnO-based DSSC is interesting to be developed due to the higher position of the conduction band compared to the conduction band of TiO2 allowing possibility to generate higher photovoltage. In this study, bilayer and monolayer of TiO2-based and ZnO-based DSSCs were fabricated. TiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation method using precursor of TiCl3 and ZnAc dihydrate, respectively. All of TiO2-based DSSSs were sensitized with natural dye anthocyanin extracted from mangosteen percicarp and Ru-based dye (N719). ZnO-based DSSCs were only sensitized with N719 dye. The results show that bilayer TiO2-based DSSCs could enhance the light harvesting efficiency by ...
Advanced Materials Research, 2014
Dye-sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) have been successfully fabricated by using ZnO nanoparticles (NPs). The ZnO photoelectrode was prepared by using pastes solved in water-based and ethanol-based solvent. The ZnO NPs was synthesized by copresipitation method, prepared by reaction from Zinc Acetate with diethylene glycol (DEG). The obtained ZnO NPs has 13.93 nm particle diameter. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed that ZnO NPs from monodisperse spherical aggregate with particle diameter of approximately 300nm. The band gap was found of 3.29eV. Variations of annealing temperature were carried out in photo-electrode fabrication. This work employs extracts from mangosteen pericarp as natural dye for fabrication of DSSCs. DSSCs were fabricated in sandwich structure with redox couple electrolyte I3-/I- and Pt-catalyst counter electrode. The best efficiency of 0.11% (Voc = 232.4 mV, Jsc = 111.6 µA/cm2, FF = 61.41 %) was obtained for DSSCs using ZnO photo-electrode prepared by ethanol...
Effects of Na-doping on the efficiency of ZnO nanorods-based dye sensitized solar cells
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics, 2014
Na-doped ZnO nanorods (Zn 1-x Na x O: x = 0.0, 0.02, 0.04) were grown by a chemical bath deposition method on ZnO seeded FTO substrates. The influence of Na-doping on the efficiency of ZnO nanorods-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was investigated. Undoped and Na-doped ZnO nanorods were used as photo-anodes for the fabricated DSSCs. X-ray diffraction measurements exhibited that all the samples had a wurtzite structure of ZnO with a preferred orientation of (002) plane. Scanning electron microscopy images of the samples revealed that all the samples displayed hexagonal shaped nanorods. It was observed from optical measurements that the band gap energy gradually decreased from 3.29 to 3.21 eV for undoped and 4 at.% Na-doped ZnO nanorods, respectively. Photoluminescence spectrum for undoped ZnO showed three peaks located at 379, 422, and 585 nm corresponding to UV emission, zinc vacancy, and deep level emission (DLE) peaks, respectively. When ZnO nanorods were doped with 2 at.% Na, the intensity of UV peak increased whereas the intensity of DLE peak decreased. The maximum conversion efficiency of DSSCs was found to be 0.22 % with a J sc of 0.80 mA/cm 2 , V oc of 0.49 V, and fill factor of 0.523 as ZnO nanorods were doped with 2 at.% Na atoms.
Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, 2017
In this work, two natural dyes extracted from henna and mallow plants with a maximum absorbance at 665 nm were studied and used as sensitizers in the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of the extract revealed the presence of anchoring groups and coloring constituents. Two different structures were prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) using zinc oxide (ZnO) layers to obtain ZnO nanowall (NW) or nanorod (NR) layers employed as a thin film at the photoanode side of the DSSC. The ZnO layers were annealed at different temperatures under various gas sources. Indeed, the forming gas (FG) (N2/H2 95:5) was found to enhance the conductivity by a factor of 103 compared to nitrogen (N2) or oxygen (O2) annealing gas. The NR width varied between 40 and 100 nm and the length from 500 to 1000 nm, depending on the growth time. The obtained NWs had a length of 850 nm. The properties of the developed ZnO NW and NR layers with different th...
ZnO and TiO2 Nanostructured Dye sensitized Solar Photovoltaic Cell
Materials Today: Proceedings, 2019
The performance of nanostructured metal oxides (ZnO and TiO 2) based dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) were investigated. Natural dye, chlorophyll extracted from fresh spinach leaves, was used as sensitizer for fabrication of the cells. ZnO was synthesized by chemical bath deposition technique.The Field emission scanning electron microscopic (FESEM) images show hexagonal patterned ZnO nano-towers of 5 µm length and ~ 1 µm diameter. TiO 2 was synthesized by sol-gel method.The FESEM images show that the TiO 2 nano-rods of 2 µm length and ~ 300 nm diameter.TiO 2 based DSSC was possessed better efficiency of 0.27% as compare to ZnO based DSSC of 0.13%.
ZnO Nanostructures for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Advanced Materials, 2009
This Review focuses on recent developments in the use of ZnO nanostructures for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) applications. It is shown that carefully designed and fabricated nanostructured ZnO films are advantageous for use as a DSC photoelectrode as they offer larger surface areas than bulk film material, direct electron pathways, or effective light-scattering centers, and, when combined with TiO 2 , produce a core-shell structure that reduces the combination rate. The limitations of ZnO-based DSCs are also discussed and several possible methods are proposed so as to expand the knowledge of ZnO to TiO 2 , motivating further improvement in the power-conversion efficiency of DSCs.
Photochemical performance of ZnO nanostructures in dye sensitized solar cells
Solid State Sciences, 2015
In this work, the photoconversion efficiencies of ZnO having diverse microstructures and structural defects have been investigated. A conversion efficiency of 1.38% was achieved for the DSSCs fabricated with as prepared ZnO nanorods having minimum vacancy defects and a favourable one dimensional directional pathway for electron conduction. The DSSCs fabricated with ZnO nanoparticles exhibited relatively low conversion efficiency of 1.004% probably due to multiple trapping/detrapping phenomena within the grain boundaries and ZnO flowers though exhibited a high dye adsorption capability exhibited the lowest conversion efficiency of 0.59% due to a high concentration of structural defects. Based on the experimental evidences, we believe that the type of defects and their concentrations are more important than shape in controlling the overall performance of ZnO based DSSCs.
Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a promising candidate for a low cost solar harvesting technology as it promised a low manufacturing cost, ease of fabrication and reasonable conversion efficiency. Basic structure of DSSC consists of photoanode, dye, electrolyte and counter electrode. Photoanode plays an important role for a DSSC as it supports the dye molecules and helps in the electron transfer that will determine the energy conversion efficiency. This paper emphasizes the various improvements that had been done on the TiO2 and ZnO photoanode nanostructures synthesized through thermal method. For overall comparisons, ZnO nanoflowers photoanode had achieved the highest energy conversion efficiency of 4.7% due to its ability of internal light scattering that had increased the electron transportation rate. This has made ZnO as a potential candidate to replace TiO2 as a photoanode material in DSSC.
Scientific Review Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Incorporated with Tio 2-ZnO Nanoparticles
2017
The escalated and savage consumption of conventional sources of energy are leading to forecasted energy and environmental crises [1]. Solar Energy emerged as feasible alternative to confront the major environmental problems that result from the uncontrolled use of fossil resource in energy generation because "More energy from sunlight strikes Earth in 1 hour than all of the energy consumed by humans in an entire year" [2]. In 1991, Professor Grätzel reported a new low cost chemical solar cell by the successful combination of nanostructured electrode and efficient charge injecting dye, known as Grätzel cell or dye-sensitized solar cell which falls under the third generation photovoltaic cells [3]. In dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), dye molecules adsorbed on the oxide play a role of ""antenna"" for photon capturing. For this reason, accompanying with the development of DSSCs, organic dyes have been intensively studied with a focus on increasing the extinction coefficient and extending the optical absorption spectrum [4-10]. However, a major problem confronting these cells is the low efficiency of conversion. In optimizing the device performance and stability of DSSC, several research efforts have been expended on manipulating the corresponding architecture involving inorganic and organic systems as well as various interfaces so as to enhance the cell performance [11-14]. In general, ZnO nanoparticles based DSSCs shows low photoelectrochemical performance as compared to commercial TiO 2 based DSSCs [15]. Some of the limiting factor for this is insufficient attachment of dyes with the nanoparticles, formation of aggregation between the nanoparticles up on film formation, low injection rate, low regeneration of electron, and formation of Zn 2+ /dye complex. The formation of Zn 2+ /dye complex can agglomerate which comes from dissolution of the nanostructured film to form a thick covering layer instead of a monolayer, and is therefore inactive for electron injection which also limit the cell performance. This study proposed simple design strategies for realizing how to improve photovoltaic properties of the cell by coating on top of a TiO 2 semiconductor a layer of ZnO with different thickness. The PV performance of the formed DSSCs were investigated systematically. The conversion efficiency was increased from 0.0030 % to 0.0064 % for DSSC with 2 SILAR cycles which produces the best performance.
ZnO Nanorod–TiO 2 -Nanoparticulate Electrode for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 2009
Highly dense ZnO nanorods were synthesized on TiO 2-nanoparticulate coated fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates by the chemical vapor deposition method for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The uniformly grown ZnO nanorod layer has a thickness of 4 mm on the TiO 2-nanoparticulate layer with a wurtzite structures as confirmed by the X-ray diffraction pattern. The DSSC fabricated with a ZnO nanorod/TiO 2-nanoparticulate electrode had an overall light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 3.7% with a short-circuit current density J SC of 8.12 mA/cm 2 , open-circuit voltage V OC of 0.76 V, and fill factor FF of 0.59, whereas ZnO nanowire/TiO 2-nanoparticulate-electrodebased DSSCs exhibited a low of 1.1% with J SC of 2.14 mA/cm 2 and slightly high V OC of 0.79 V. It is expected that the enhanced photovoltaic performance of the ZnO nanorod/TiO 2-nanoparticulate electrode can be attributed to high dye loading and high light harvesting through large surface areas of ZnO nanorods incorporated with TiO 2-nanoparticulate as compared with the ZnO nanowire/TiO 2nanoparticulate electrode.