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A Review on Modified TiO2 Nanostructured Materials in DSSC

Atanu Janu

Abstract


Dye sensitized solar cells DSSCs emerged as a new class of low cost energy conversion devices with simple manufacturing procedures and environmentally friendly character.TiO2 controls the light harvesting and confinement properties of the cell, in addition to preventing charge recombination and promoting charge transport toward the anode. These last two parameters are major factors in determining the charge collection efficiency. The particle size and shape, crystallinity, surface morphology and chemistry of the TiO2 material are key parameters to be controlled for optimized performance of the solar cell. Nano tube and nanowire-structured TiO2 photoelectrode for dye-sensitized solar cells have been investigated. Many studies suggest replacing nanoparticles film with an array of single crystalline nano wires (rods), nanoplants, or nanosheets in which the electron transport increases by several orders of magnitude. Incorporation of vertically aligned carbon nanotube counter electrode improved efficiency of TiO2/anthocyanin dye-Sensitized solar cells. One very important technique used to improve the performance of DSSCs is aliovalent substitution of the TiO2 with elements of different valence states. This allows the optoelectronic properties of theTiO2 to be tailored by, for example, changing the carrier concentration or shifting the absorption edge nearer to or farther from the visible range. The donor dopant that has received the most attention in recent years is Nb5+, which is attractive because of its similar ionic radius (0.64 Å vs. 0.605 Å for Ti4+) and ability to form strongly hybridized 4d orbitals with the 3d orbitals of Ti4+.Nb-doped TiO2 has shown excellent performance as a transparent conducting oxide owing to its high conductivity in thin film form. Acceptor dopants like Ga3+ and Y3+are also of interest because they are known to improve the photo catalytic activity of TiO2 without adversely affecting the band gap. These substitutions have been shown to affect the particle morphology, optical band gap, and the extent and type of trap states below the conduction band, all of which affect the performance of a DSSC. The coupled structure that has received the most attention is that consisting of CdS and TiO2 colloidal particles. It is possible to irradiate CdS with light of lower energy than that needed to electronically excite TiO2 particles, so the photo generated electron can be injected from CdS to TiO2 while hole remains in CdS. Keywords: Dye sensitized solar cells, DSSC performance, modified nanostructure TiO2, TiO2 nanotube

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