Conductive Glass with Simple Spray Deposition Method for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Application

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells utilize a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) glass which is mainly Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) for the working electrode and counter electrode. The TCO is one of the important parts of DSSC. TCO glass becomes the part that determines the price of mass production of DSSC. Low-cost TCOs with high conductivity and high light transmittance are required. In this study, We proposed a simple fabrication of TCO glass by spray deposition method of Tin (II) Chloride (SnCl2) on top of the lime glass substrate. Fabrication was started with 3 mm of Lime glass cleaned with distilled water and ethanol in sonication for 15 minutes and 10 minutes heating at 500°C. The variation of layer thickness was performed by multilayer spray using 2 mg SnCl2 and 5 ml ethanol mixture and then baked for 10 minutes at 500°C. The electrical conductivity, light transmittance, and roughness of the glass at one spray layer were 20 Ω/cm2, 87.1 %, and 0.010 µm respectively, and decrease along with the increase of the number of spray layers. A multimeter, UV-VIS Spectrophotometer, and 3D Measuring Laser Microscope are used to measure these parameters in this study. Compared to the properties of commercially available Fluorine doped Tin Oxide (FTO) glass, this method can be used as an alternative for conductive glass production for Dye-Sensitized Solar cells.