Sol-Gel Processed TiO2 Nanotube Photoelectrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance
1
Solar Energy Conversion Laboratory, Institute of Biochemical Physics RAS, 119334 Moscow, Russia
2
Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability (EEWS), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34134, Korea
3
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Korea
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nanomaterials 2020, 10(2), 296; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10020296
Received: 3 January 2020 / Revised: 5 February 2020 / Accepted: 5 February 2020 / Published: 10 February 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metal-Oxide Nanomaterials for Energy Application)
The performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) critically depends on the efficiency of electron transport within the TiO2-dye-electrolyte interface. To improve the efficiency of the electron transfer the conventional structure of the working electrode (WE) based on TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) was replaced with TiO2 nanotubes (NTs). Sol-gel method was used to prepare undoped and Nb-doped TiO2 NPs and TiO2 NTs. The crystallinity and morphology of the WEs were characterized using XRD, SEM and TEM techniques. XPS and PL measurements revealed a higher concentration of oxygen-related defects at the surface of NPs-based electrodes compared to that based on NTs. Replacement of the conventional NPs-based TiO2 WE with alternative led to a 15% increase in power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the DSCs. The effect is attributed to the more efficient transfer of charge carriers in the NTs-based electrodes due to lower defect concentration. The suggestion was confirmed experimentally by electrical impedance spectroscopy measurements when we observed the higher recombination resistance at the TiO2 NTs-electrolyte interface compared to that at the TiO2 NPs-electrolyte interface. Moreover, Nb-doping of the TiO2 structures yields an additional 14% PCE increase. The application of Nb-doped TiO2 NTs as photo-electrode enables the fabrication of a DSC with an efficiency of 8.1%, which is 35% higher than that of a cell using a TiO2 NPs. Finally, NTs-based DSCs have demonstrated a 65% increase in the PCE value, when light intensity was decreased from 1000 to 10 W/m2 making such kind device be promising alternative indoor PV applications when the intensity of incident light is low.
Keywords:
dye-sensitized solar cells; nanotubes; charge traps; semiconductor-liquid interface; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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MDPI and ACS Style
Tsvetkov, N.; Larina, L.; Ku Kang, J.; Shevaleevskiy, O. Sol-Gel Processed TiO2 Nanotube Photoelectrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance. Nanomaterials 2020, 10, 296.
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