O2 plasma sintering study of TiO2 photoelectrodes in dye solar cells

Abstract

The development of more efficient photoelectrochemical solar cells has been, over the years, the subject of many scientific researches. In this paper a methodology was established to carry out the sintering process of nanoporous TiO2 layer by using plasma, which was compared with sintered layers made by the conventional sintering process in a furnace. The TiO2 commercial paste was spread by doctor-blading technique and subjected to different sintering processes. Porous layer samples were subjected to structural and morphological analyses. Then photoelectrodes dye-loading was measured by optical spectrophotometry. The quality of the layers under plasma sintering process in terms of weight loss and removal of organic compounds was evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis, mass spectrometry and FT-IR. The results showed that the plasma sintering process favors the adsorption of dye on the layer surface due to the creation of active states caused by O2 reactive plasma. Furthermore the O2 plasma process provides enough energy for removing organic compounds arising from the TiO2 paste and for providing nanoparticle sintering. Solar cells assembled with the plasma-sintered layers had a power conversion efficiency 20.1% higher than the obtained in solar cells sintered in a conventional furnace, proving the efficiency of the plasma sintering process.