It is possible to simultaneously evaluate all the experimental parameters and their relative importance in a DSSC?

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics 2015 (HOPV15)

Poster, Claudia Barolo, 242
Publication date: 5th February 2015

In recent years the research on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) has focused on the understanding of the photovoltaic processes and the improvement of the photoconversion efficiencies up to 13%. Despite these continuous advances the cells are still subjected to undesirable phenomena, i.e. photodegradation of the dye, leakage and bleaching of the electrolyte, diffusion of pollutants from the outside and corrosion of some components. Moreover it is not obvious to realize devices able to guarantee high photovoltaic performances with reliable reproducibility and long term stabilities. The reason is that the cells are assembled with different and heterogeneous layers, each one affected by intrinsic variability; moreover the layers influence each other and this increases exponentially in cells with large active area, like modules and panels for commercial applications. This situation also makes very difficult to compare the results presented in the literature by different scientific groups working on similar materials. The idea of the present work started from the need to identify all the important factors by which the photoconversion process may be influenced. For this reason, the research has been conducted with a chemometric multivariate approach (Design of Experiment, DoE), instead of the standard One Variable at a Time approach (OVAT). DoE allows to simultaneously evaluate multiple variables by reducing the number of the needed experiments, in order to understand and possible predict the synergistic/antagonistic effects, due to the interactions between the variables themselves. This approach have been recently applied with success to a several aspects of the key procedures of DSSC fabrication (i.e.: dye uptake [1], sensitization of ZnO [2], formulation of electrolyte gels [3], membranes and liquid [5]). In this contribution we will discuss our recent advances in terms of optimized efficiencies and stabilities in reproducible cells. Both advantages and critical aspects of this method will be reported.

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