Preparation And Characterization Of Carboninner-coated TiO₂ Arrays And Molecular Engineering Of A Fluorene Donor For Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes(TiO2-NTs) is a kind of semiconductive nano-material. The diameter of the pores was controlled between 2 nm and 20 nm. Of which the size and the structure are highly ordered. Recently, Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes, Nanowire, Nanorod, Nanosheet have aroused the interest, Especially for Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes, which has been widely used in the area of photovoltaic devices, Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, photocatalyst, sensors and so on.The highly ordered Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes were prepared through two-step anodization method in the electrolyte which is composed of ammonia fluorine, ethylene glycol and water. As comparison, Carbon inner-coated TiO2 Nanotubes(C-TiO2-NTs) were prepared on the basis of Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes, after which were carbonlized by glucose. The condition optimization of the materials preparation such as anodization time, temperature, the concentration of the electrolyte solution and the immersing time in the glucose solution were discussed and conformed. The anatase porous Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes and Carbon inner-coated TiO2 Nanotubes were gained by heat-treatment in the maffle on Ar.The nanostructure of materials had been investigated by SEM, TEM. The carbon and crystalline phase were determined by XRD and TGA. Both of the materials can be used as promising anode active materials for the high-performance Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which is conformed by Charge/Discharge, Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS) and cyclic voltammetry(CV) measurements and so on.Four kinds of dyes, based on the Fluorene Donor and Triphenylamine, have been designed and synthesized, the structure of which have been conformed by the NMR, MALDI-TOF test, and the optical and electrochemical properties by UV, fluorescence, and CV test, to be utilized as light-absorber in the DSCs.The results indicated that anatase Carbon inner-coated TiO2 Nanotubes have better performance than Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes in the aspects of conductivity, cycling performance, stability.The photo-to-current efficiency(PCE) is not high and regular(about 3.0 %), which may be the reason of device fabrication and the purity of the materials.