Articles
  • Quenching process effects on the performance of a TiO2 photoelectrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

  • Woon-Yong Parka and Ki-Tae Leea,b,c,*

  • aDivision of Advanced Materials Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea
    bDepartment of Energy Storage/Conversion Engineering of Graduate School (BK21 FOUR), Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea
    cHydrogen and Fuel Cell Research Center, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea

  • This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

A rapid cooling (quenching) step has been introduced in fabrication of TiO2 photoelectrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The quenching process, studied at a fixed sintering temperature, decreased particle size but increased surface roughness without any substantial change in the crystal structure or oxidation state of TiO2 films. Therefore, the change in the DSSC performance induced by the quenching was related closely to the microstructural and morphological changes in the TiO2 films. Smaller particle size and the rough surface of TiO2 films facilitated dye adsorption and increased the number of active reaction sites. In particular, the enlarged number of active reaction sites produced by the quenching process promoted the charge transfer reaction at the TiO2-dye-electrolyte interface, resulting in overall performance improvement of DSSCs. The conversion efficiency of the furnace cooled- and quenched-TiO2 films at 500 oC were 4.588% and 5.797%, respectively


Keywords: Dye-sensitized solar cells, Photoelectrode, TiO2, Sintering process, Quenching method

This Article

  • 2022; 23(2): 199-207

    Published on Apr 30, 2022

  • 10.36410/jcpr.2022.23.2.199
  • Received on Oct 28, 2021
  • Revised on Dec 30, 2021
  • Accepted on Jan 10, 2022

Correspondence to

  • Ki-Tae Lee

  • aDivision of Advanced Materials Engineering, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea
    bDepartment of Energy Storage/Conversion Engineering of Graduate School (BK21 FOUR), Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea
    cHydrogen and Fuel Cell Research Center, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonbuk 54896, Republic of Korea
    Tel : +82-63-270-2290 Fax: +82-63-270-2386

  • E-mail: ktlee71@jbnu.ac.kr