Low-cost solar cell using PVA.NaCl polymer electrolyte as hole transport medium and graphite/TiO2 composite as photon-absorbing materials

Abstract

Abstract The efforts to fabricate a solar cell cheaper than DSSC type have been increasingly developed. A new design of solar cell using cheap TiO2 as photon absorber and PVA.LiOH as hole transport medium has been continously evolved, including the attempt to alter LiOH as main material of polymer electrolyte. For this purpose, an inexpensive solar cell using PVA.NaCl polymer electrolyte as a hole transport medium replacing PVA.LiOH has been successfully fabricated. A suspension of TiO2 was initially deposited on Fluorine Tin Oxide using droplet method followed by heating at 200 °C for two hours. The content of NaCl was varied from 10, 21, 32 and 43% compared to the content of PVA to achieve the best efficiency. 0.04% efficiency was gained using 32% of NaCl content. To get a better performance of the solar cell, TiO2/graphite composite was used as photon absorbing materials. Graphite powder was inserted into the suspension of TiO2 and varied from 10, 20, 30 and 40% based on the TiO2 content. 0.16% efficiency was achieved with 30% fraction of graphite. Although the efficiency was low, this type of solar cell is promising to be developed in the future due to the inexpensive materials and easy fabrication were used.