Development of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell by Characterizing Polymeric Counter Electrodes

Proceedings of ‏The 2nd International Conference on Advanced Research in Applied Science and Engineering

Year: 2020

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.rase.2020.03.92

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Development of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell by Characterizing Polymeric Counter Electrodes

Osama Majeed Butt, Shazad Maqsood Khan, Muhammad Shakeel Ahmad and Muhammad Umar Manzoor

ABSTRACT: 

Developments in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) attracted the attentions of researchers due to their easy fabrication, high efficiency and green energy technique. Recent researches increased their energy conversion technique for their different applications. Conventionally, Pt or other conductive materials are used as conductive substrate in electrodes and catalysts in dye-sensitized solar cells. The potential advantages of polymer solar cells include high flexibility, good process ability, low material cost and independence from scarce resources. In this work DSSC was fabricated by using glass substrates coated with conductive layer of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO). Graphene, Graphene Oxide and Poly-Aniline were synthesized and used as Photo-cathode (i.e. counter-electrode). Newly fabricated DSSCs were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and I-V. Characterizing of DSSCs concluded that graphene showed 2.10%, graphene oxide shows 2.90% while poly-aniline has 3.96% efficiency. Though the efficiency of the fabricated cells was found low as compared to conventional Pt made counter electrode but it is much cost effective for insensitive applications at massive scale.

Keywords: Solar Energy, DSSC, graphene, poly-aniline, counter electrode, Indium Tin Oxide (ITO).