A Novel Method to Enhance the Performance of Quasi-solid-state Dye-sensitized Solar Cells Based on Polyacrylonitrile Gel Electrolyte and Nanoparticles of ZnO with Indoline D-358 as the Dye

摘要

A novel way to overcome incomplete pore filling when using polymer gel electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cells is herein described. The pores of the indoline D-358-coated ZnO nanostructure were first filled with the liquid electrolyte, the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) gel electrolyte was subsequently placed on it, and the quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell was fabricated in the usual manner. In other cells, the PAN film was subjected to hot pressing without the liquid electrolyte filling and pressing (without heating) with the gel electrolyte. Out of several different cell configurations studied, the cell containing hot-pressed polymer film without the liquid electrolyte gave an efficiency of 2.80% with D-358 dye while the introduction of a thin film of the liquid electrolyte followed by pressing the gel polymer film increased the efficiency to 4.31%.