Conductivity/Electrochemical Study of Polyvinyl pyrrolidone-Poly(vinyl alcohol)/I3\u2212 Thin Film Electrolyte for Integrated Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Supercapacitors

D N Sangeetha,M Selvakumar,Vidyashri Poojari,Dheeraj Devadiga,M S Santosh,Y N Sudhakar,Niveditha Hegde

doi:10.1007/s11664-020-08432-z

Abstract

The current era focuses not only on producing solar energy but also preserving it for future use. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) and supercapacitors (SC) are such energy-based devices. DSSCs capture the solar energy and SCs store this captured energy. A natural anthocyanin dye extracted from Garcinia indica (kokum fruit) was used in the DSSCs. SnO2, one of the promising electrode materials for DSSC, was synthesized via a microwave technique. Blend polymer electrolytes (BPE) were prepared through a solution casting technique. A polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) blend with varying concentrations of potassium iodide, along with iodine dopant, was prepared as a BPE electrolyte composition. The best of the PVA-PVP/KI composition was chosen using Nyquist plots of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Varying the temperature, the dielectric and conductivity study of the chosen composition was studied in detail. A fast/single-step synthesis technique, namely a laser-engraved approach, was used for few-layer graphene synthesis. This graphene serves as a common platform for the DSSC-SC integrated device: as a counter electrode in DSSC and graphene-graphene symmetric electrode in SC. A DSSC-SC integrated device was fabricated and characterized using various analytical and microscopy techniques. The integrated device showed a 0.42 fill factor and 0.56% efficiency. The discharge time for integrated DSSC-SC cells was found to be increased threefold.Graphical

Highlights

A more efficient system for conversion and storage of energy has become important with the advancement of modern electronics
The current study focuses on integrating Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) with laser-induced graphene-based SC for energy harvesting and storage.[21,22]
An increase in discharge time certainly indicates that (1) solar light is absorbed by the DSSC photosensitizer, (2) charges are transported through the DSSC-SC via fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO), and (3) graphenegraphene SCs store charges across the electrodeelectrolyte interface through the electrical doublelayer formation

Summary

INTRODUCTION

A more efficient system for conversion and storage of energy has become important with the advancement of modern electronics. SnO2 is an important n-type semiconductor with a bandgap of 3.6 eV and high stability in strong acids/ bases, and is often referred to as a good oxidizing agent It has been used in several applications such as optoelectronic devices: as cathode materials in lithium batteries and supercapacitors. Conductivity/Electrochemical Study of Polyvinyl pyrrolidone-Poly(vinyl alcohol)/I3À Thin Film Electrolyte for Integrated Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Supercapacitors are broken. This was verified by decreasing the content of nitrogen and oxygen in LIG, and these atoms are released as gases and converted to graphitic structures. A blend polymer electrolyte (BPE) stock solution was prepared by mixing 500 mg of polyvinyl pyrrolidone and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVP-PVA) in a minimum amount of water. The characterization of the integrated device was carried out using AC impedance, charge-discharge measurements, and I–V characteristics

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

44 This work

CONCLUSION