Developing the Fabrication Technique With Low Energy Consumption of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

This article presents significant experimental data about the dye-sensitized nano solar cells (DSSCs) using new photoelectrode fabrication technique to achieve low energy consumption process purposes. The typical nano TiO₂ solution preparation usually spends some hours for nano TiO₂ particle dispersion with extremely high input ultrasonic energy. Moreover, a sintering process for adhesion enhancement often requires temperature over 500°C, which also results in very large energy consumption. This work develops a composite apparatus for nano TiO₂ particle dispersion using ultrasonic dispersion with help of agitation to reduce the dispersion time and uses the conductive binder to replace the sintering process. The new developed fabrication process of the photoelectrode spends 30 mins with input power ca. 300 W for dispersion and 10 mins with 150°C for drying, which saves ca. 70% energy. The result shows that short-circuit density, open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and photoelectric conversion efficiency of the best DSSCs in this work are 3.04 mA/cm², 0.80 V, 49%, and 1.18% respectively.