Development of TiO2 pastes modified with Pechini sol–gel method for high efficiency dye-sensitized solar cell

摘要

A titanium oxide layer used for a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has to meet two opponent properties to assure a high efficiency DSSC: good connection between TiO2 grains and a large inner surface area. Three different paste formulations based on commercial nanocrystalline TiO2 powder (Degussa P25) are studied. Results confirm that modification of the TiO2 paste with the Pechini sol–gel method increases the surface area of the TiO2 layer while maintaining good connections between the nanocrystalline grains, consequently the efficiency of the DSSC increases from 1.8% to 5.3%. The structure and morphology of the TiO2 layers are described by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).