Low-temperature sintering for plastic dye-sensitized solar cells using conventional TiO2 paste containing organic binders

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) require sintering of TiO2 photoelectrodes at 450 °C to 550 °C. However, high-temperature sintering is unfavorable because it limits the use of materials that cannot withstand high temperatures. In previous papers, we proposed a surface treatment of TiO2 photoelectrodes to reduce the sintering temperature from 500 °C to 250 °C using a dielectric barrier discharge and ultraviolet light from a low-pressure mercury lamp. In this study, we improved the surface treatment of TiO2 photoelectrodes to further reduce the sintering temperature from 250 °C to 150 °C using a conventional TiO2 paste that contains organic binders. The sintering temperature of 150 °C is critical because it is the maximum tolerable temperature of plastic substrates. The improved surface treatment is applied to both glass and plastic substrate DSSCs. The energy conversion efficiency of glass and plastic substrate DSSCs sintered at 150 °C using our improved surface treatment are approximately 110% and 80%, respectively, of that of glass substrate DSSCs fabricated using the conventional method sintered at 500 °C.