Enhanced photovoltaic performance of dye-sanitized solar cell with tin doped titanium dioxide as photoanode materials

Abstract

Tin doped TiO2 (Sn-TiO2) nanoparticles were synthesized using a simple photolysis method and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirm that they have a 4.59 nm crystallite size and crystallized as an anatase phase of TiO2. Field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveals the formation of spherical and fusiform agglomeration nanoparticles with mesoporous structure and size equal 20nm approximately. The preparation of 5%Sn:TiO2 is confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), and the empirical formal is Sn0.05TiO4. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that 1% Sn was successfully doped with anatase TiO2 and that Ti+3 was present as an electron trap. Raman spectrum shows a red shift of anatase peaks with doping Sn:TiO2. The adsorption spectrum of Sn doped TiO2 has an excellent transmittance with increasing Sn doping until 5% mole ratio and reaching 85%, as well as decreasing the band gap with increasing Sn doping ratio and reaching a minimum value of 2.62eV corresponding to 5% Sn:TiO2. The results obtained that the optimum conditions for working Sn:TiO2 as a DSSCs are 5%Sn doping ratio, N3 dye solution and pH = 3. EIS measurements were used to quantify the kinetics of interfacial charge transfer, such as chemical capacitance, electron recombination lifespan, charge transfer resistance, charge collection efficiency, and charge transfer resistance. Enhanced power conversion equals 12.32% for %5Sn:TiO2/based N3 dye/GO at pH =3 by using solar simulator (100 mW/cm2 ).