Supramolecular Electrolytes for Solid State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Prof Yong Soo Kang, Department of Chemical Engineering, Hanyang University, Korea
  • Yong-Gun Lee, Seoul National University, Korea
  • Ms Sun Young Kim, Department of chemical engineering, Hanyang University, Korea
  • Ms Su Jin Kim, Department of chemical engineering, Hanyang University, Korea
  • The development of solid state dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is desirable because of their advantages such as low production cost by roll-to-roll process and prolonged durability. However, their energy conversion efficiency is still very low 2~4% compared to that corresponding to liquid type DSSCs (~11%). Thus, oligomeric supramolecules containing double and triple hydrogen bonding sites at both chain ends of the poly(ethylene glycol) oligomers have been utilized to improve the overall energy conversion efficiency by enlarging interfacial contact area between the solid state electrolyte and dyes, and also by improving ionic conductivity. Double hydrogen bonding sites were introduced at both chain ends of the poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG, MW=2,000) by reacting PEG-dimesylate with pyrimethamine, which were in situ polymerized with glutaric acid by double hydrogen bonds (2H-Polymer). The oligomers with triple hydrogen bonding sites were also synthesized by reacting PEG-dimesylate with guanine and cytosine (3H-Polymer). DSSCs employing the 2H- and 3H-polymer electrolytes resulted in the overall energy conversion efficiency of 4.63 % and 4.53 %, respectively, at one sun conditions with active area = 0.16 cm2, TiO2 layer thickness = 10 μm. Short circuit current densities of (JSC) 10.41 and 10.09 mAcm-2, open circuit voltages (VOC) of 0.71 and 0.69 V, fill factors (FF) of 0.62 and 0.65, were obtained from 2H- and 3H-polymers, respectively.