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Fabrication of stable dye-sensitized solar cell with hydrothermally synthesized titanium dioxide nanorods as a photoanode material

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Abstract

TiO2 nanorods have been prepared by hydrothermal method at 170 °C for 24 h and successfully implemented in a stable solar cell as a photoanode material to replace the conventional nanoparticles which cause the recombination reactions at the interfaces due to a large number of grain boundaries. The synthesized products are characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, Raman and transmission electron microscopy analysis. The performance of the nanorods employed solar cell has been studied under the irradiance of 100 mW/cm2. The fabricated device showed a power conversion efficiency of 5.42%. The open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density and fill factor of the device are 0.647 V, 13.64 mA/cm2, and 61.5%, respectively. The electrochemical behavior of the fabricated device has been analyzed with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The lifetime of the injected electrons in the photoanode network has been found to be 10 ms, which was evaluated from Bode phase plot. From the Nyquist plot of the impedance spectrum, lower charge transfer resistance (Rct) has been observed at the TiO2/dye/electrolyte interface. The sealed device was monitored frequently with 500 h of the interval. Up to 2500 h, no significant drop has been observed in the J–V characteristics.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. A. K. Barua, Emeritus Professor, IIEST, Howrah, West Bengal for valuable discussions. The authors are grateful to acknowledge UGC-DAE CSR (CSR-KN/CRS-66/2014-15/506) and DST-SERI [DST/TM/SERI/2k12/40(G)], Government of India, for the financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, SSN Research Centre, SSN College of Engineering, Kalavakkam, Chennai, Tamilnadu, 603 110, India

    Rajamanickam Govindaraj, Narendiran Santhosh, Muthu Senthil Pandian & Perumalsamy Ramasamy

  2. Centre of Excellence for Green Energy and Sensor System, IIEST, Howrah, West Bengal, 711 103, India

    Mukhopadhyay Sumita

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  1. Rajamanickam Govindaraj
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  2. Narendiran Santhosh
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Correspondence to Rajamanickam Govindaraj.

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Govindaraj, R., Santhosh, N., Senthil Pandian, M. et al. Fabrication of stable dye-sensitized solar cell with hydrothermally synthesized titanium dioxide nanorods as a photoanode material. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 29, 3736–3743 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-017-8307-2

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