Polymer Tuned Semiconductor Mesoporous Materials—Synthesis Of Mesoporous Titania And Application In Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Semiconduction mesoporous materials have been the emergence of a new research focus in recent years. As a typical non-silicon-based semiconduction mesoporous material, mesoporous titania can enhance photoelectric conversion efficiency effectively because of its high surface area, large uniform pores and excellent electrical performance. Specially, being one of the crucial parts of dye-sensitized solar cells, the crystalline phase, morphology and the size of mesoporous titania play a significant role in improving the photoelectric conversion efficiency.In the present work, mesoporous titania was prepared by using two structure direction agents in the environment-friendly condition. The phase structure, specific surface area, pore size and morphology of the resulting titania were characterized by fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption-desorption apparatus, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM), and valuable explorations had been carried on its size control and application in dye-sensitized solar cells. The main content can be divided in the following parts:This paper presented the preparation of bimodal nanocrystal mesoporous titania by using the triblock poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide)-poly(ethylene oxide)(P123) as a template and tetrabutyl titanate (TBOT) as the inorganic precursor through a hydrothermal treatment. The results revealed that the amount of PI23had a significant effect on the microstructure of the nanocrystal mesoporous titania. The bimodal nanocrystal mesoporous titania was finally employed as the photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cells, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency was5.18%, which was28.85%higher than that made from P25. This study showed that the bimodal nanocrystal mesoporous titania materials could be potential in the field of photovoltaic material.we reported a preparation approach of anatase/brookite mixtured mesoporous titania with rod-like structure by compositing process, including hydrothermal method for preparing initial anatase mesoporous titania using tetrabutyl titanate (TBOT) as the inorganic precursor and the composite procedure by between as-prepared titania and sodium alginate (SA) hydrosol. The results indicated that the amount of different percentages between H-TiO2and SA had a significant effect on the microstructure of the resulting titania and the best ratio was50/50. The resulting mesoporous titania was finally employed as the photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cells, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency was only0.11%, which was much lower than that made from P25. This study showed that the bimodal nanocrystal mesoporous titania materials could be potential in the field of photovoltaic material. We believe that the synthesis condition of nanocrystal mesoporous titania is tuned further, the photoelectric conversion efficiency will be improved. Nevertheless, the experiment in this work also provides us a new insight into the preparation of mesoporous titania with rod-like structure.