Issue 13, 2013

Investigation of the role of anions in hydrotalcite for quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells application

Abstract

In recent research in clean energy applications, clay has gained significant interest, especially as a gelator in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), for its capability to resolve the leakage issue of liquid electrolyte. In this paper, anionic hydrotalcite is utilized as a gelator to assist the formation of gel electrolyte in DSSCs. Three types of hydrotalcite with exchangeable anions, viz. NO3 (CL-N), CO32− (CL-C) and SO42− (CL-S), were synthesized with similar morphologies via the co-precipitation method. It is observed that the gel formation of hydrotalcite strongly depends on the exchangeable anions present in the hydrotalcite. The objective of this work is to understand the effect of hydrotalcite anions on the photovoltage and the photocurrent in the gel electrolyte through electrochemical analysis. With increasing ion affinity, the Voc increases. This is attributed to Li+ intercalation with hydrotalcite compound resulting in the elevation of the conduction band of TiO2. With increasing ion affinity, the Jsc decreases. This is attributed to the decreasing diffusion coefficient of triiodide and the increasing difficulty in the injection process. For anions with low ion affinity in hydrotalcite, the diffusion of the redox couple is not significantly affected by the high viscosity of the gel. Furthermore, the study indicates that proper selection of hydrotalcite compounds not only produces a quasi-solid gel electrolyte, but also increases the efficiency of the solar cells: the device performance was improved from 7.8% (liquid electrolyte) to 8.4% (hydrotalcite gel electrolyte).

Graphical abstract: Investigation of the role of anions in hydrotalcite for quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells application

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Dec 2012
Accepted
24 Jan 2013
First published
24 Jan 2013

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2013,1, 4345-4351

Investigation of the role of anions in hydrotalcite for quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells application

X. Wang, R. Deng, S. A. Kulkarni, X. Wang, S. S. Pramana, C. C. Wong, M. Grätzel, S. Uchida and S. G. Mhaisalkar, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2013, 1, 4345 DOI: 10.1039/C3TA01581E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements