Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol.144, 78-83, 2016
Rapid, simple method for determining the porosity of mesoporous TiO2 films using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM)
Two different mesoporous films of TiO2 were coated onto a QCM disc and fired at 450 degrees C for 30 min. The first film was derived from a sol-gel paste that was popular in the early days of dye-sensitised solar cells, i.e. dssc, research, a TiO2(sg) film. The other was a commercial colloidal paste used to make examples of the current dssc cell; a TiO2(ds) film. A QCM was used to determine the mass of the TiO2 film deposited on each disc and the increase in the mass of the film when immersed in water/glycerol solutions with wt% values spanning the range 0-70%. The results of this work reveal that with both TiO2 mesoporous films the solution fills the film's pores and acts as a rigid mass, thereby allowing the porosity of each film to be calculated as: 59.1% and 71.6% for the TiO2(sg) and TiO2(ds) films, respectively. These results, coupled with surface area data, allowed the pore radii of the two films to be calculated as: 9.6 and 17.8 nm, respectively. This method is then simplified further, to just a few frequency measurements in water and only air to reveal the same porosity values. The value of the latter 'one point' method for making porosity measurements is discussed briefly. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.