Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol.91, No.20, 1959-1965, 2007
Nanocomposite gel electrolyte with large enhanced charge transport properties of an I-3(-)/I- redox couple for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells
TiO2 nanoparticles was introduced into quasi-solid-state Poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (P(VDF-HFP)) based gel electrolyte to form nanocomposite gel electrolyte for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. The steady-state voltammograms revealed that the diffusion performance of the triiodide and iodide in the quasi-solid-state P(VDF-HFP) based gel electrolyte was greatly enhanced after the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles. Especially, the apparent diffusion coefficient of 13 increased from 0.76 x 10(-10) m(2)/s to 4.42 x 10(-10) m(2)/s, reached the level of the liquid electrolyte (4.04 x 10(-10) m(2)/s). By introducing TiO2 nanoparticles, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the gel based device increased from 5.72% to 7.18%, which reached the level of the liquid electrolytes based device (7.01%). The electrical impedance spectrum revealed that the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles could reduce the charge recombination at the interface of dyed TiO2 electrode/electrolyte. The results of the accelerated aging tests showed that the nano-TiO2 composite gel electrolytes based devices could maintain 90% of their initial value after heating at 60 degrees C for 1000 h, which indicated that they had better thermostability than the corresponding normal gel electrolyte based devices and liquid electrolyte based devices. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:nanocomposite;charge transport properties of an I-3(-)/I-;redox couple;thermostability;quasi-solid-state;dye-sensitized solar cell