Abstract
In-situ growth of CdS nanorods (NRs) has been demonstrated via solvothermal, in a low band gap polymer, poly [[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy] benzo [1,2-b:4,5-b’] dithiophene-2,6-diyl] [3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl) carbonyl] thieno [3,4-b] thiophenediyl]] (PTB7). It is a high yielding, green approach as it removes use of volatile and hazardous chemicals such as pyridine as ligand which are conventionally used to synthesize precursors of CdS (NRs). Moreover the solvothermal process is a zero emission process being a close vessel synthesis and hence no material leaching into the atmosphere during the synthesis. The PTB7:CdS nanocomposite has been characterized by SEM, XRD, FTIR, UV-visible spectroscopy techniques. The photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy study of PTB7 with CdS NRs has shown significant PL quenching by the incorporation of CdS NRs in PTB7; this shows that CdS NRs are efficient electron acceptors with the PTB7. The PTB7:CdS is used as active layer in the fabrication of hybrid solar cells (HSC) as donor-acceptor combination in the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) geometry. The HSCs fabricated using this active layer without any additional supporting fullerene based electron acceptor has given power conversion efficiency of above 1%.
Highlights
The fourth generation solar cells are based on the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) active layers of the inorganic nanomaterials and organic polymers [1]-[7]
In-situ growth of CdS nanorods (NRs) in the matrix of polymer poly [[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’] dithiophene-2,6-diyl][3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl]] (PTB7) via solvothermal process followed by the fabrication of hybrid solar cells (HSC) using the PTB7:CdS as donor-acceptor combination in BHJ geometry
This solved couple of serious issues related with the CdS synthesis, 1) the chloro-aniline being nonvolatile at room temperature does not leach into the atmosphere during reaction work up and greener material as compared to pyridine and triethyl anime; 2) due to structural similarity of the chloro-aniline with chlorobenzene the complex is soluble in the non-polar solvent
Summary
The fourth generation solar cells are based on the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) active layers of the inorganic nanomaterials and organic polymers [1]-[7]. This protects the polymer from thermal degradation as well as allows chemical bonding between the functional groups of the polymer and the CdS which is observed in the significant decrease in the band gap of PTB7 from 1.7 eV to 1.59 eV Another important feature of this work is the choice of the ligand for precursor cadmium complex that works as a source of sulfur and decomposes to the CdS. Chloroaniline was used in place of pyridine/triethyl amine as co-ligand for the complex This solved couple of serious issues related with the CdS synthesis, 1) the chloro-aniline being nonvolatile at room temperature does not leach into the atmosphere during reaction work up and greener material as compared to pyridine and triethyl anime; 2) due to structural similarity of the chloro-aniline with chlorobenzene the complex is soluble in the non-polar solvent. The champion results came up from the 1:1 ratio having power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the 1.22%, the average PCE observed for the same ratio was 1.16%
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