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Probing the effect of precursor concentration on the growth and properties of titanium dioxide nanocones for environment safe solar cells

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Abstract

Environment friendly third-generation solar cells sensitized by dyes, quantum dots, and perovskites are seen as promising energy alternatives. Among the various strategies, employing one-dimensional nanostructures that exemplify the smallest dimension for efficient carrier transport rate from the active layer to electron transport layer (ETL) in photovoltaic devices is attempted in this work. We herein report the synthesis of well-aligned 1-D TiO2 nanocones as ETL for photovoltaic thin films by varying the precursor concentration (0.03 M, 0.04 M, 0.05 M) to track the evolution of growth. The hydrothermal approach is exploited to grow oriented rutile TiO2 nanocones on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) under neutral conditions. The examination of phase, crystallinity, morphology, and opto-electronic properties of the well-structured nanocone arrays is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), ultra violet diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS), Brunnauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area analysis, and field-dependent dark and photoconductivity analysis. The XRD pattern confirms the formation of the tetragonal rutile phase. SEM micrographs and UV-DRS spectroscopy reveals that the length of the nanocones and the energy gap is found to be maximum for 0.04 M concentration with a well-defined excitation band at 316 nm. Significantly, a strong light-trapping effect that decreases the incident light reflections and correspondingly increases the light absorption is unveiled through photoconductive studies for the TiO2 nanocones at 0.04 M having a surface area of 81.767 m2/g. The investigation essentially suggests that the as-prepared one-dimensional nanostructures would serve as efficient photoanodes in environment safe third-generation solar cells.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge the funding support extended by the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, through the Core Research Grant (CRG) scheme (CRG/2022/008338).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Energy Nanotechnology Centre (ENTeC), Loyola Institute of Frontier Energy (LIFE), Loyola College (Autonomous), Chennai, 600034, India

    Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah, Joseph Akshara Sherline, Jesudas Antony Robinson, Charlie Vinodha & Joseph Merline Shyla

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  1. Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah
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  2. Joseph Akshara Sherline
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  3. Jesudas Antony Robinson
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  4. Charlie Vinodha
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah and Joseph Merline Shyla. Methodology: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah and Joseph Merline Shyla. Data curation: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah, Joseph Akshara Sherline, Jesudas Antony Robinson and Joseph Merline Shyla. Software analysis: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah, Joseph Akshara Sherline, Charlie Vinodha and Joseph Merline Shyla. Validation: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah and Joseph Merline Shyla. Writing—original draft: Arokiaraj Shiny Jerushah and Joseph Merline Shyla. Resources: Joseph Akshara Sherline, Jesudas Antony Robinson, Charlie Vinodha and Joseph Merline Shyla. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Joseph Merline Shyla.

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Jerushah, A.S., Sherline, J.A., Robinson, J.A. et al. Probing the effect of precursor concentration on the growth and properties of titanium dioxide nanocones for environment safe solar cells. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 97092–97101 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29187-0

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