Abstract
The first report of low temperature thermal sintering of binder-containing TiO2 pastes giving η = 7.5% using metal peroxide combustion promoters.
Highlights
Nano-structured metal oxide films are key components of dye-sensitized (DSC) solar cells
The data show that this heat and oxygen release coincide best with binder combustion for ZnO2 and dye-sensitised solar cell (DSC) device tests show that adding ZnO2 to TiO2 pastes produces the best performances affording h 1⁄4 7.5% for small devices (0.26 cm2) and h 1⁄4 5.7% at 300 C or 450 C > P25/ZnO2 (450 C) for DSL18NR-T/ZnO2 for larger (1 cm2) devices
The device efficiency is most strongly linked with Jsc; BET and dye sorption measurements suggest that Jsc is linked with the metal oxide surface area and dye loading
Summary
Binderfree approaches include spin coating,[11] sol gel,[12] hydrothermal treatment[13,14,15] chemical sintering,[16,17] pressure sintering,[18,19,20] electrophoretic deposition of TiO2 nanoparticles,[21] varying TiO2 particles[22] and the use of electron beam showers.[23] Variations in radiant heating have been studied including laser treatment,[24] microwave irradiation[25] and post-sintering O2 plasma[26] aimed at removing residual organic matter from the metal oxide surface Whilst these approaches have shown promise at the laboratory scale, producing consistent, large-scale meso-porous lms for DSC device manufacturing will require the presence of a binder in the TiO2 colloid. We have studied the metal oxide area and dye loading to investigate the links between the short circuit current and sintering treatment
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