Preparations, Characterizations, and a Comparative Study on Photovoltaic Performance of Two Different Types of Graphene/TiO2 Nanocomposites Photoelectrodes

Abstract

This research work undertook a comparative study of the promoting effects of graphene in TiO2 photoanodes. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of the types and concentration of reduced graphene oxides (rGO) on structure properties and the photovoltaic performance of TiO2 based electrodes. Graphene oxide (GO) was prepared by using modified Hammer’s method. Next, GO was reduced by using two different approaches, which were the chemical reduction with vitamin C and thermal reduction. The latter approach was also carried out in situ during the fabrication and heat treatment processes of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). From the results, it was found that the photovoltaic performance of the DSSCs containing the GO/TiO2 electrode, in which the GO phase experienced an in situ thermal reduction, was superior to those containing rGO/TiO2. It was also found that the power conversion efficiency of the DSSCs changed with the concentration of graphene in a nonlinear fashion. The optimum concentrations of graphene, corresponding to the highest PCE values of the GO/TiO2 based DSSC (3.69%) and that of the rGO/TiO2 based cell (2.90%), were 0.01 wt% and 0.03 wt%, respectively.