Dye-sensitized Solar Cells Employing Polymer-Gel Electrolytes and Novel Pt-Counter Electrodes

  • Moon-Sung Kang, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Korea
  • Mr Byong Cheol Shin, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Korea
  • Dr Ji-Won Lee, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Korea
  • Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) has attracted great attention over the past decade owing to its high energy conversion efficiency and low production cost. However, the leakage of liquid solvent from such cells has been suggested as the one of the critical factors limiting the long-term stability of DSC. Therefore, one of the most significant issues in developing DSCs is the use of non-volatile electrolytes, which have high ion conductivity at ambient temperature and excellent long-term stability. In this work, quasi-solid state DSCs employing ternary component polymer-gel electrolytes have been prepared. We have focused on the development of polymer-based gel electrolytes with high ion mobility. The polymer-gel electrolytes were designed to facilitate ion transport in the highly viscous medium and to utilize incident light more effectively in the cell. We have employed non-volatile solvents of multiple molecular size distributions and nanofillers to prepare the polymer-gel electrolytes. In addition, novel Pt-counter electrodes prepared by self-assembly technique have been employed in this study. The counter electrodes were prepared by spin-coating the mixture solution consisting of hexachloroplatinic acid (H2PtCl6), non-ionic surfactant, and inorganic oxide precursor on transparent conductive oxide (TCO) substrates and successive sintering. The result shows that the photovoltaic performances of the DSCs are enhanced by employing the new Pt-counter electrodes mostly due to the increase in the photocurrent. The enhanced photon-to-electricity conversion efficiency of the DSCs would be associated with the increase in the surface area of Pt layer on TCO substrate. More detailed results will be discussed in the meeting.