Secure & Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Nano-clay Electrolyte
Satoshi Uchida a, Takaya Kubo b, Hiroshi Segawa b
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)
Ecublens, Switzerland, 2014 May 11th - 14th
Organizers: Michael Graetzel and Mohammad Nazeeruddin
Oral, Satoshi Uchida, presentation 260
Publication date: 1st March 2014

 

The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) introduced by Graetzel in 1991 have received great attention over the past decade because of their potential for high energy conversion efficiency and low production cost1,2).  However, the presence of liquid electrolytes in such modules may result in some practical limitations of sealing and long-term stability due to the leakage of the liquid electrolyte.  Recently, DSSCs with quasi-solid-state electrolyte with clay mineral have been proposed3,4).  The clay powder is attractive for its abundance in nature, high chemical stability and also because it is non-hazardous to humans.  Moreover, clay dispersed liquid shows thixotropic properties and is widely used in industry such as paint, cement, cosmetics, as a conventional gelator.  However, according to these reports, the cell performances are still low because they have only used naturally occurring minerals.  The thickness of the primary particle may reach about 1 nm but the size will be more than 100 nm in diameter.  This is why the natural clay particle can not sufficiently penetrate into the nano porous TiO2layers.  They can only accumulate on the topmost TiO2 film surface and absorb the excess amount of electrolyte.  Here in this work, an artificial nano-clay powder was newly examined to improve the cell performance of quasi-solid-state DSSC5-8).



[1] B. O’Regan, M. Grätzel, Nature, 353, 737-740 (1991). [2] M. Grätzel, Nature, 414, 338-344 (2001). [3] B. I. Ito, J. N. Freitas, M.-A. Paoli and A. F. Nogueira, J. Braz. Chem.Soc., 19(4), 688-696 (2008). [4] J. H. Park, B-W. Kim and J. H. Moon, Electrochem. Solid St., 11(10), B171-173 (2008). [5] T. Inoue, S. Uchida, T. Kubo and H. Segawa, ECSJ Autumn Meeting, Kyoto, 2A08 (2009) [6] S. Uchida, T. Inoue, T. Kubo and H. Segawa, MRS Proceedings, 1211E, R09-04 (2009). [7] X. Wang, S.A. Kulkarni, B.I. Ito, S.K. Batabyal, K. Nonomura, C.C. Wong, M. Gratzel, S.G. Mhaisalkar, and S. Uchida, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 5(2), 444 (2013). [8] X. Wang, X, R. Deng, S.A, Kulkarni, X.Y. Wang, S.S. Pramana, C.C. Wong, CC, M. Gratzel, M, S. Uchida, and S.G. Mhaisalkar, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 1, 13 (2013).
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