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Enhanced performance of flexible dye-sensitized solar cells: electrodeposition of Mg(OH)(2) on a nanocrystalline TiO2 electrode

journal contribution
posted on 2014-09-04, 14:22 authored by Nirmal Peiris, S. Senthilarasu, Upul Wijayantha-Kahagala-Gamage
Nanocrystalline TiO2 photoanodes were prepared on a conductive indium–tin oxide coated polyethylene naphthalate (ITO-PEN) plastic substrate by the doctor-blade method to fabricate flexible dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). The surface of the photoanode was coated with Mg(OH)2 by electrodeposition and the deposition time was systematically varied (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 min). Electrodeposited Mg(OH)2 was confirmed by IR and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. The surface morphology was studied by scanning electron microscopy. The internal surface area of TiO2 was studied against the deposition time by taking into account the projected surface area of the photoelectrode and it shows that the internal surface area of the photoelectrode was reduced as the Mg(OH)2 deposition time increased. The performance of flexible DSCs on various deposition times of Mg(OH)2 was evaluated on the basis of their photocurrent density–voltage characteristics. Among the deposition times, 2 min showed the best performance in Voc on a treated flexible DSC, with resulting 847 mV and a photocurrent density of 7.13 mA/cm2, providing an overall light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 4.01%. This photovoltage is among the highest attained for a flexible DSC to date. This notable increment in Voc at a thin layer of Mg(OH)2 was attributed to the suppression of recombination of photogenerated electrons via the exposed surface of ITO as well as TiO2 without influencing the internal surface area of the photoanode significantly.

Funding

EPSRC, DSTL, Johnson Matthey Plc, and Department of Chemistry, Loughborough University

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Chemistry

Published in

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C

Volume

116

Issue

1

Pages

1211 - 1218 (8)

Citation

PEIRIS, T.A.N., SENTHILARASU, S. and WIJAYANTHA, K.G.U., 2012. Enhanced performance of flexible dye-sensitized solar cells: electrodeposition of Mg(OH)(2) on a nanocrystalline TiO2 electrode. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 116 (1), pp. 1211 - 1218.

Publisher

© American Chemical Society

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2012

Notes

Closed access. This article was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C [© American Chemical Society] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp208267p

ISSN

1932-7447

Language

  • en

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