Rational Design of Solar Cells for Efficient Solar Energy Conversion

Alagarsamy Pandikumar, Ramasamy Ramaraj

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119437451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Condensed Matter

An interdisciplinary guide to the newest solar cell technology for efficient renewable energy

Rational Design of Solar Cells for Efficient Solar Energy Conversion explores the development of the most recent solar technology and materials used to manufacture solar cells in order to achieve higher solar energy conversion efficiency. The text offers an interdisciplinary approach and combines information on dye-sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, polymer solar cells, perovskite solar cells, and quantum dot solar cells.

The text contains contributions from noted experts in the fields of chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering.The authors review the development of components such as photoanodes, sensitizers, electrolytes, and photocathodes for high performance dye-sensitized solar cells. In addition, the text puts the focus on the design of material assemblies to achieve higher solar energy conversion. This important resource:

• Offers a comprehensive review of recent developments in solar cell technology
• Includes information on a variety of solar cell materials and devices, focusing on dye-sensitized solar cells
• Contains a thorough approach beginning with the fundamental material characterization and concluding with real-world device application.
• Presents content from researchers in multiple fields of study such as physicists, engineers, and material scientists

Written for researchers, scientists, and engineers in university and industry laboratories, Rational Design of Solar Cells for Efficient Solar Energy Conversion offers a comprehensive review of the newest developments and applications of solar cells with contributions from a range of experts in various disciplines.

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Metal Nanoparticle Decorated ZnO Nanostructure Based Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Gregory Thien Soon How¹, Kandasamy Jothivenkatachalam², Alagarsamy Pandikumar³, and Nay Ming Huang⁴

¹ Department of Physics, University of Malaya, Malaysia

² Department of Chemistry, Anna University‐BIT Campus, Tiruchirappalli‐620024, Tamilnadu, India

³ Functional Materials Division, CSIR‐Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi‐630006, India

⁴ Faculty of Engineering, University Xiamen Malaysia, Malaysia

1.1 Introduction

Solar energy has always been an ideal renewable energy source that is clean, abundant, inexpensive, and widely distributed regionally in the world [1–3]. Understanding this, the emergence of dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) for converting solar energy to electricity has been very promising due to the ease of the manufacturing process, the low fabrication cost, the fact that it is nonpolluting, and the relatively high efficiency [1, 4–6]. It is known that a typical DSSC consists of various subsections, includinng a nanocrystalline semiconductor oxide photoanode, dye sensitizer, redox couple electrolyte, and counterelectrode [3, 4]. The main idea behind the operating principle of DSSCs is based on the optical excitation of a dye that results in the injection of an electron into the conduction band of a wide band gap semiconductor oxide. The oxidized dye molecule is regenerated afterwards when it is reduced to its ground state by gaining one electron from a redox couple that is found in the electrolyte around the sensitized semiconductor oxide nanostructured film [3–5]. Since the first outstanding research work on DSSC was demonstrated by O’Regan and Gratzel in 1991 [5], each of its components has been extensively investigated and optimized, with the aim to maximize the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of DSSCs [4, 7, 8]. Recently, a PCE of 12.3% has been achieved by using the cosensitization of two dyes and a Co(II/III) tris(bipyridyl)‐based redox electrolyte [9]. Hence, study to find a suitable and high performance DSSC output has greatly increased over the years.

Amongst all the materials studied for use in DSSCs, nanocrystalline TiO₂ has been most commonly employed as the metal oxide semiconductor material in high efficiency DSSCs [4–6]. Several methods were used for the preparation of the TiO₂ nanoparticles in DSSCs, such as sol‐gel [10, 11], gas‐phase pyrolysis [12], or the commonly used hydrothermal synthesis method [13, 14]. However, hydrothermal methods are not ideal because both synthesis and purification processes take a prolonged time to achieve well‐formed and highly crystalline TiO₂ particles [12]. To minimize the costs of metal oxide semiconductor materials for DSSCs, simple preparation methods are essential to control the formation of crystal structure, crystallization, and particle size [15]. Besides TiO₂, there are reports of other alternative metal oxides, such as SnO_2, Nb₂O₅, and ZnO, being used as porous semiconductor materials for DSSC photoelectrodes [16–20].

ZnO is an another attractive and alternative photoanode to replace TiO₂ as an electron conductor owing to its higher bulk electron mobility and easily tunable morphology, which allows the rational design and development of hierarchical ZnO nanostructures able to simultaneously optimize charge carrier path and dye loading [19, 20]. Hence, ZnO is considered an excellent backbone to produce high‐efficiency DSSCs. The ZnO characteristic of higher electron mobility (∼205–1000 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) than TiO₂ (∼0.1 − 4 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹), enables the rapid diffusion transport of photoinjected electrons when it is employed as a photoanode material in DSSCs. In addition, ZnO is a suitable material for the fabrication of mesoporous photoanodes in DSSCs; it has a band gap of 3.2 eV and a conduction band edge position of −4.3 eV, both of which are similar to TiO₂ [15–17]. Moreover, ZnO can be easily prepared into tunable nanostructures, such as nanoparticles, nanowires, nanotubes, nanorods, nanosheets, and tetrapods, providing numerous alternatives for op...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Metal Nanoparticle Decorated ZnO Nanostructure Based Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells
• 2 Cosensitization Strategies for Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells
• 3 Natural Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells – Strategies and Measures
• 4 Advantages of Polymer Electrolytes for Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells
• 5 Advantages of Polymer Electrolytes Towards Dye‐sensitized Solar Cells
• 6 Rational Screening Strategies for Counter Electrode Nanocomposite Materials for Efficient Solar Energy Conversion
• 7 Design and Fabrication of Carbon‐based Nanostructured Counter Electrode Materials for Dye‐sensitized Solar Cells
• 8 Highly Stable Inverted Organic Solar Cells Based on Novel Interfacial Layers
• 9 Fabrication of Metal Top Electrode via Solution‐based Printing Technique for Efficient Inverted Organic Solar Cells
• 10 Polymer Solar Cells – An Energy Technology for the Future
• 11 Rational Strategies for Large‐area Perovskite Solar Cells
• 12 Hot Electrons Role in Biomolecule‐based Quantum Dot Hybrid Solar Cells
• Index
• End User License Agreement