Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)
Publication date: 1st March 2014
Mesoporous materials with crystalline frameworks, high surface area and tunable pore size have received extensive research attention because of their potential applications in many fields such as photocatalysis, electrochromism, energy storage and conversion.In order to improve the performance of titania–based photoanodes for applications in solar cells, an attractive strategy is to prepare highly porous films with a well-defined size of the mesoporous structure. In particular, mesostructured titania films are promising candidates as photoelectrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) due to their huge surface area, few grain boundaries and uniform pore structure with excellent connectivity of mesopores. The development of photoanoades based on ordered mesoporous titania films could significantly improve the degree of dispersion of the dyes adsorbed onto titania and increase the surface of the dye/titania interface.
One of the most common routes for the production of mesoporous oxides with high surface area and an ordered mesostructure is the sol-gel synthesis in the presence of organic templates, such as block copolymers. The soft template assisted route offers many advantages, as low temperature, high scalability and low cost equipments. Recently, ordered mesostructured titania films have been also prepared using block copolymers as the structure-directing agents to obtain lamellar, hexagonal and cubic mesostructures [1-2].
On the basis of these considerations, we have developed novel mesostructured titania films in order to exploit their versatility to improve the performance of titania-based solar cells.
Our recent findings have shown that a novel bifunctional photoanode with a double-scale morphology, which comprises a meso-ordered thin titania buffer layer and a main layer consisting of well-organized clusters of nanocrystallities, allows to significantly improve the energy conversion efficiency of DSSCs with respect to photoanodes based on commercial titania [3-4].
The highly ordered thin titania film, applied as an interfacial layer between the nanocrystalline main photoanode and the FTO electrode, suppresses the back-transport reaction by blocking direct contact between the electrolyte and the transparent conductive oxide and provides excellent adhesion of the upper titania layer to the FTO.
The main layer consists of hierarchical structures prepared by soft template assisted route and composed of nanocrystallites that cluster in well-organized larger secondary particles, thereby functioning as light scatterers without sacrificing the internal surface area which is indispensable for a good dye-uptake and light harvesting efficiency.
Ordered mesoporous titania films have also shown promising performance in solid state devices.
Scanning electron microscopy image of an ordered thin titania buffer layer.
[1] Choi, S. Y.; Lee, B.; Carew, D. B.; Mamak, M.; Peiris, F. C.; Speakman, S.; Chopra, N.; Ozin, G. A. 3D Hexagonal (R-3m) Mesostructured Nanocrystalline Titania Thin Films: Synthesis and Characterization, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2006, 16, 1731–1738. [2] Dewalque, J.; Cloots, R.; Mathis, F.; Dubreuil, O.; Krinsad, N.; Henrist, C. TiO2 multilayer thick films (up to 4 µm) with ordered mesoporosity: influence of template on the film mesostructure and use as high efficiency photoelectrode in DSSCs, J. Mater. Chem. 2011, 21, 7356-7363. [3] De Marco, L.; Di Carlo, G.; Giannuzzi, R.; Manca, M.; Riccucci, C.; Ingo, G.M.; Gigli, G. Highly efficient photoanodes for dye solar cells with a hierarchical meso-ordered structure, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2013, 15, 16949-16955. [4] Di Carlo, G.; Caschera, D.; Toro, R.G.; Riccucci, C.; Ingo, G.M.; Padeletti, G.; De Marco, L.; Gigli, G.; Pennesi, G.; Zanotti, G.; Paoletti, A.M.; Angelini, N. Spectroscopic and Morphological Studies of Metal-Organic and Metal-Free Dyes onto Titania Films for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, International Journal of Photoenergy 2013, Article ID 582786, 11 pages.
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