Improving performance of ZnO flexible dye sensitized solar cell by incorporation of graphene oxide

Abstract

At today great interest has been paid to hydrogen production by water electrolysis due to their simplicity and low cost. Dye sensitized solar cell are promising devices as renewable electrical power source to achieve water electrolysis because they possess high theoretical efficiency compared with Si based solar cells. In this research, ZnO photo catalyst was modified with graphene oxide (GO) by means of high energy milling. The anode of the flexible dye-sensitized solar cell was fabricated by electrophoretic deposition of the photo catalyst onto flexible electrodes. The obtained materials were characterized by FTIR, XRD, XPS and SEM–EDS. The efficiency and fill factor of ZnO and ZnO–GO cells were estimated from the I–V curve, measured under simulated sunlight. The obtained results demonstrate that ZnO–GO cell have higher efficiency compared with the ZnO cell. The latter can be explained by the better dispersion of ZnO that enlace the dye adsorption onto the fabricated anode and by the presence of GO that improve the absorption of photons from the light.