Abstract
Textile-structured solar cells are frequently discussed in the literature due to their prospective applications in wearable devices and in building integrated solar cells that utilize their flexibility, mechanical robustness, and aesthetic appearance, but the current approaches for textile-based solar cells—including the preparation of fibre-type solar cells woven into textiles—face several difficulties from high friction and tension during the weaving process. This study proposes a new structural concept and fabrication process for monolithic-structured textile-based dye-sensitized solar cells that are fabricated by a process similar to the cloth-making process, including the preparation of wires and yarns that are woven for use in textiles, printed, dyed, and packaged. The fabricated single-layered textile-based dye-sensitized solar cells successfully act as solar cells in our study, even under bending conditions. By controlling the inter-weft spacing and the number of Ti wires for the photoelectrode conductor, we have found that the performance of this type of dye-sensitized solar cell was notably affected by the spacing between photoelectrodes and counter-electrodes, the exposed areas of Ti wires to photoelectrodes, and photoelectrodes’ surface morphology. We believe that this study provides a process and concept for improved textile-based solar cells that can form the basis for further research.
Highlights
As a wearable concept for meeting future individual needs to incorporate solar cells into clothing, backpacks, and other belongings, and as a building-integrated or interior-design concept, textile structures are highly suitable materials; many researchers have worked on developing textile-structured DSSCs as a result
Monolithic-structured single-layer textile DSSCs were fabricated using the concept of the core-integrated structure[9], which is used for alternative solutions to the problems discussed above; such materials are TCO-free and have the flexible characteristics of a typical sandwich structure (Fig. S1)
For the Ti wires that were utilized for the counter-electrodes, the Pt was electro-deposited before the weaving process
Summary
Monolithic-structured single-layer textile DSSCs were fabricated using the concept of the core-integrated structure[9], which is used for alternative solutions to the problems discussed above; such materials are TCO-free and have the flexible characteristics of a typical sandwich structure (Fig. S1). The data shows that the increasing inter-weft spacing considerably enhanced the performance of the single-layer textile-based monolithic-structured dye-sensitized solar cells. The larger inter-weft spacing induced both a larger exposed area of the Ti wires to the photoelectrodes and a smoother morphology of the photoelectrodes At this stage it is not clear which technique is more effective for improved performance, we are confident that both techniques notably affected the performance of the textile-based dye-sensitized solar cells. Single-layered textile-based monolithic-structured dye-sensitized solar cells were successively fabricated in this study by using concepts from the traditional cloth-making process, including wire and yarn preparation, weaving, printing and dyeing, and packaging; this process utilizes Ti wires, Pt-coated Ti wires, and glass-fibre yarns. We believe that this study has provided a basic process and design concept for improved textile-based solar cells with optimized performance that can be improved by further research in the near future
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