Abstract
Starch and cellulose have long been used in various industrial applications as gelating agents. In this work, the intrinsic adhesive properties of these biopolymers are exploited for application as electrolytes in DSSC. Firstly, potato starch was chemically modified into phthaloyl starch in a facile esterification process. Fabrication of polymer electrolyte with phthaloyl starch (PhSt) and hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) incorporated with dimethylformamide and tetrapropylammonium iodide produced homogeneous gels with diminished crystallinity. Infusion of different weight percentages of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (BMII) into the gels were revealed to further suppress polymer crystallinity and elevate ionic conductivity. Rheological analysis revealed that addition of up to 6 wt% of ionic liquid aid in elevating the rigidity, strength and tackiness of the gels. The improved adhesiveness of the gels can be correlated to effective reduction of interfacial resistance and restraining of recombination reactions based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Quasi-solid DSSC fabricated with PhSt-HEC with 8 wt% of BMII exhibited enhanced short-circuit current density, JSC and fill factor, contributing to an optimized efficiency of 5.20%.
Graphic abstract
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu Talip RA, Yahya WZN, Bustam MA (2020) Ionic liquids roles and perspectives in electrolyte for dye-sensitized solar cells. Sustainability 12:7598
Arof AK, Noor IM, Buraidah MH, Bandara TMWJ, Careem MA, Albinsson I, Mellander BE (2017) Polyacrylonitrile gel polymer electrolyte based dye sensitized solar cells for a prototype solar panel. Electrochim Acta 251:223–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2017.08.129
Gong J, Sumathy K, Qiao Q, Zhou Z (2017) Review on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs): advanced techniques and research trends. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 68:234–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.097
Hwang D, Kim DY, Jo SM, Armel V, MacFarlane DR, Kim D, Jang S-Y (2013) Highly efficient plastic crystal ionic conductors for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. Sci Rep 3:3520. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep03520
Kawano R, Watanabe M (2003) Equilibrium potentials and charge transport of an I-/ I-3 redox couple in an ionic liquid. Chem Commun 3:330–331
Kubo W et al (2001) Quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized tio2 solar cells: effective charge transport in mesoporous space filled with gel electrolytes containing iodide and iodine. J Phys Chem B 105:12809–12815. https://doi.org/10.1021/jp012026y
Kushwaha R, Srivastava P, Bahadur L (2017) Ionic liquid integrated polyethylene glycol (PEG)-based quasi-solid electrolyte for efficiency enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cell. J Solid State Electrochem 21:1533–1543. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-017-3517-3
Kuwahara S, Taya S, Osada N, Shen Q, Toyoda T, Katayama K (2014) Effect of electrolyte constituents on the motion of ionic species and recombination kinetics in dye-sensitized solar cells. Phys Chem Chem Phys 16:5242–5249. https://doi.org/10.1039/C3CP53964D
Latip NAA, Ng HM, Farah N, Ramesh K, Ramesh S, Ramesh S (2017) Novel development towards preparation of highly efficient ionic liquid based co-polymer electrolytes and its application in dye-sensitized solar cells. Org Electron 41:33–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2016.11.040
Liu Y, Hagfeldt A, Xiao X-R, Lindquist S-E (1998) Investigation of influence of redox species on the interfacial energetics of a dye-sensitized nanoporous TiO2 solar cell. Solar Energy Mater Solar Cells 55:267–281. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-0248(98)00111-1
Nadia SR, Khanmirzaei MH, Ramesh S, Ramesh K (2017) Quasi-solid-state agar-based polymer electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cell applications using imidazolium-based ionic liquid. Ionics 23:1585–1590. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-016-1946-0
Nawaz A, Sharif R, Rhee H-W, Singh PK (2016) Efficient dye sensitized solar cell and supercapacitor using 1-ethyl 3-methyl imidazolium dicyanamide incorporated PVDF–HFP polymer matrix. J Indus Eng Chem 33:381–384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2015.10.035
Selvanathan V, Azzahari AD, Halim AAA, Yahya R (2017) Ternary natural deep eutectic solvent (NADES) infused phthaloyl starch as cost efficient quasi-solid gel polymer electrolyte. Carbohydr Polym 167:210–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.03.023
Selvanathan V, Ruslan MH, Aminuzzaman M, Muhammad G, Amin N, Sopian K, Akhtaruzzaman M (2020) Resorcinol-Formaldehyde (RF) as a novel plasticizer for starch-based solid biopolymer electrolyte. Polymers 12:2170
Selvanathan V et al (2020) Organosoluble starch derivative as quasi-solid electrolytes in DSSC: Unravelling the synergy between electrolyte rheology and photovoltaic properties. Sol Energy 197:144–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.12.074
Selvanathan V et al (2020) organosoluble starch-cellulose binary polymer blend as a quasi-solid electrolyte in a dye-sensitized solar Cell. Polymers 12:516
Singh R, Polu AR, Bhattacharya B, Rhee H-W, Varlikli C, Singh PK (2016) Perspectives for solid biopolymer electrolytes in dye sensitized solar cell and battery application. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 65:1098–1117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.06.026
Singh R et al (2017) Electrical and structural properties of ionic liquid doped polymer gel electrolyte for dual energy storage devices. Int J Hydrogen Energy 42:14602–14607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.04.126
Siyahjani S, Oner S, Singh PK, Varlikli C (2018) Highly efficient supercapacitor using single-walled carbon nanotube electrodes and ionic liquid incorporated solid gel electrolyte. High Perform Polym 30:971–977. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954008318772333
Su’ait MS, Rahman MYA, Ahmad A (2015) Review on polymer electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Solar Energy 115:452–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.02.043
Sun W, Xu H (2016) Enhanced photovoltaic performances of novel all-ionic liquid integrated poly(acrylic acid/polyethylene glycol) gel electrolytes in quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. RSC Adv 6:68193–68198. https://doi.org/10.1039/C6RA14443H
Sundararajan V, Selvaraj G, Ng HM, Ramesh S, Ramesh K, Wilfred CD, Bashir S (2017) Exploring the effect of novel N-butyl-6-methylquinolinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ionic liquid addition to poly(methyl methacrylate-co-methacrylic) acid electrolyte system as employed in gel-state dye sensitized solar cells. Electrochimica Acta 240:361–370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2017.04.097
Sundararajan V, Farhana NK, Ng HM, Ramesh S, Ramesh K (2019) Efficiency enhancement study on addition of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide ionic liquid to the poly(methyl methacrylate-co-methacrylic acid) electrolyte system as applied in dye-sensitized solar cells. J Phys Chem Solids 129:252–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpcs.2019.01.016
Syairah A, Khanmirzaei MH, Saidi NM, Farhana NK, Ramesh S, Ramesh K, Ramesh S (2019) Effect of different imidazolium-based ionic liquids on gel polymer electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cells. Ionics 25:2427–2435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-018-2603-6
Usui H, Matsui H, Tanabe N, Yanagida S (2004) Improved dye-sensitized solar cells using ionic nanocomposite gel electrolytes. J Photochem Photobiol, A 164:97–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphotochem.2003.12.020
Winie T, Arof AK, Thomas S (2020) Polymer electrolytes: characterization techniques and energy applications. Wiley
Wu J, Lan Z, Lin J, Huang M, Huang Y, Fan L, Luo G (2015) Electrolytes in dye-sensitized solar cells. Chem Rev 115:2136–2173. https://doi.org/10.1021/cr400675m
Yang Y, Hu H, Zhou C-H, Xu S, Sebo B, Zhao X-Z (2011) Novel agarose polymer electrolyte for quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cell. J Power Sour 196:2410–2415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2010.10.067
Zakeeruddin SM, Grätzel M (2009) Solvent-free ionic liquid electrolytes for mesoscopic dye-sensitized solar cells. Adv Func Mater 19:2187–2202. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.200900390
Funding
V. Selvanathan is grateful to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for the Modal Insan fellowship (RFA 1). The authors are thankful to Researchers Supporting Project (RSP-2020/34), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for their support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
VS Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing—Original Draft RY Conceptualization, Resources MS Writing—Review and Editing MHR Supervision GM Formal analysis NA Project administration MA Writing—Review and Editing, Funding acquisition.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Selvanathan, V., Yahya, R., Shahiduzzaman, M. et al. Ionic liquid infused starch-cellulose derivative based quasi-solid dye-sensitized solar cell: exploiting the rheological properties of natural polymers. Cellulose 28, 5545–5557 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-03854-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-021-03854-2