Preparation And Application Of Photoanode Based On Core-shell Structure Of TiO₂Nanowires

Dye sensitized solar cell （DSSC） has been wildly investigated because of its simpleproduce, low-cost, materials abundant and environment friendly. Nowadays, photoanodewith one-dimensional nano-structure mixed with nanoparticles is proven to be an effectiveway to improve overall cell performance. Meanwhile, photoanode with core/shellstructure which can suppress the recombination and reduce the electrons loss has receivedconsiderable attention. In this work, we mainly studied the preparation process of TiO₂nanowires, the composite photoanode of TiO₂nanowirs/nanoparticles and core-shellstucture of TiO₂/SrO、TiO₂/ZnO for DSSC.TiO₂nanowires are synthesized by hydrothermal treatment and the compositephotoanodes are prepared through mixing various mass ratios of nanowires andnanoparticles （PW0, PW10, PW20, and PW100）. DSSC with PW10（nanowires content is10wt%） photoanode shows a relative high conversion efficiency of6.27%. The resultshows that the reasonable ratio of nanowires and nanoparticles can promote the electrontransfer, reduce the dark current, prolong the electron lifetime, and improve the cellefficiency.The preparation process and cell performance of PW10photoanode with SrO andZnO shell coating are studied. The result shows that SrO and ZnO shell coating on TiO₂nano-composites can result in improving in both Vocand fill factor. The trend in Jscand ηfirst increases and then decreases. With the dipping time up to30min, the nano-compositephotoanode coated by SrO and ZnO can further improve the conversion efficiency to6.91%and6.56%respectively.Arrays of TiO₂nanowires were prepared by hydrothermal process on a Ti foil.Thepreparation process and cell performance of arrays of TiO₂nanowires with SrO shellcoating are studied. DSSC with Such a novel core-shell structure photoanode improveconversion efficiency, with improving of open circuit voltage, short circuit current and fillfactor.