TiO₂/ZnO Dendritic Core-shell Structure Photoanodes And Its Application In Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Today, energy crisis and air pollution such as greenhouse, acid rain and haze effected human’s life more and more seriously and the clean energy such as solar power, wind energy resources and hydraulic energy utilized by people day by day. DSSCs have been studied extensively all over the word for its relatively high conversion efficiency, simple preparation process and low production costs, which expected to replace the silicon solar cells. However there are still more problems need to be solved such as less surface area, higher carrier recombination and so on. In this paper, we made several studies about the DSSCs photoanodes:One-dimensional rutile TiO2nanorod array photoanodes has been prepared upon the FTO conductive substrates by the hydrothermal method and were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM and UV-VIS. Discussed several hydrothermal factors in detail which affected the hydrothermal grown such as TTB concentration, hydrothermal time, temperature and additives and elected the best hydrothermal process. Discussed the DSSCs photoelectric conversation after TiCl4solution treatment. Under the stand conditions (AM1.5100mW/cm2), the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the DSSCs was1.81%, Jsc was2.49mA/cm2,Voc and the FF was760mV and0.49separatelyAnatase nano-shell were prepared by D.C. magnetron sputtering process upon a one-dimensional array of the rutile TiO2nanorods and were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, UV-VIS and other tests. Discussed the nano-shell’s function in DSSCs which can be effective in reducing carrier recombination. The optimal performance of the core-shell structure was prepared by magnetron sputtering6min. Under the conditions of AM1.5100mW/cm2test, Voc was829mV, Jsc was8.5mA/cm2, FF was0.4and the photoelectric conversion efficiency was2.85%.ZnO nanoshell were prepared by the D.C. magnify sputtering method upon the rutile nanorod photoanodes and characterized by XRD/TEM/SEM/UV-VIS. Discussed the DSSCs performance affected by the different thickness of ZnO. Prepared the dendritic core-shell photoanodes on the ZnO nanoshell by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. Discussed the DSSCs performance affected by the dendritic core-shell photoanodes which were prepared by different CBD and dye absorb time. Under the standard circumstance, the Voc was712mV, Jsc was2.814mA/cm2, FF was0.36and the photoelectric conversion efficiency was0.72%. The photoelectric conversion performance increased by10times than the rutile nanorods array photoanodes under the same dye absorb time.