Abstract—The demand for energy led to clean, renewable and cheap energy sources, while solar energy is the most abundant. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are proposed as low cost alternatives to the conventional photovoltaics. These cells have been widely examined due to their low cost and high conversion efficiency. Several mesoporous metal oxides have been examined, where ZnO nanostructures have been taken much attention last years.
At the present work, we examine the use of nanostructured ZnO films as photoanodes in DSSCs. The simplicity of the ZnO films synthesis is demonstrated while solar cells are constructed and tested. In particular, we demonstrate a simple method combining Zn(NO3)2 as zinc precursor with different organic templates. Besides, the structural properties of the ZnO films are examined with porosimetry, microscopy methods and X-Ray diffractograms. Their electrical behavior is examined in terms of current-voltage characteristic curves under simulated solar light while electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is also used for measuring charge transfer across the ZnO-electrolyte interface and free electron lifetimes. We finally obtained an overall efficiency of 0.6% for DSSCs based on ZnO films and a commercial dye as sensitizer. It seems that ZnO films constitute promising nanostructures for DSSCs that can be further improved.
Index Terms—Dye-sensitized solar cells, photoanodes, thin films, zinc oxide.
Andigoni Apostolopoulou and Dimitrios Karageorgopoulos are with the Physics Department, University of Patras, 26500, Greece (e-mail: and.apostolopoulou@gmail.com, dkarageorgop@upatras.gr).
Andreas Rapsomanikis is with the Geology Department, University of Patras, 26500, Greece (e-mail: rapsosan@gmail.com).
Elias Stathatos is with the Electrical Engineering Department, Technological-Educational Institute of Western Greece, 26334 Patras, Greece (tel.: 0030-2610-369242; e-mail: estathatos@teiwest.gr).
[PDF]
Cite:Andigoni Apostolopoulou, Dimitris Karageorgopoulos, Andreas Rapsomanikis, and Elias Stathatos, "Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Zinc Oxide Nanostructured Films Made with Amine Oligomers as Organic Templates and Gel Electrolytes," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 311-315, 2016.
