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

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Summary

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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

Paste and device manufacture
Device characterization
Results and discussion
Thermal chemistry
DSC device data
Materials characterisation
Conclusions

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