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An Investigation on the Stability Enhancement of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Fabricated with Ethyl Cellulose Based Gel Electrolyte

  • SOLAR ENGINEERING MATERIALS SCIENCE
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Abstract

Liquid electrolyte based Dye-Sentisized Solar Cells (DSSC) often suffers stability problems which limit its durability. The stability of the dye-sensitized solar cell is enhanced with the use of gel electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte in this paper. A detailed effective fabrication method of the DSSC based on gel electrolyte has been presented here. In this approach, the gel-state electrolyte solution was prepared by mixing the traditional liquid-state electrolyte with ethyl cellulose as a gelator and was placed into the DSSC in its quasi-solid state. The prepared gel state electrolyte showed appreciable conductivity, which is comparable to those of traditional liquid electrolytes by Electrochemical impedance analysis. The gel electrolyte based DSSCs exhibited a considerable power-conversion efficiency of 1.29% and enhanced stability compared to the traditional liquid electrolyte based DSSC.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Authors gratefully acknowledge the Dept. of Physics, the University of North Bengal, for providing financial support and laboratory facilities for carrying out the research work. We also acknowledge the financial support from DST for providing a DST Inspire fellowship to one of our co-workers for carrying out the research work.

Funding

The financial support to carry out this research was provided by the University of North Bengal. One of the authors’ availed Ph.D. Inspire fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India.

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  1. Department of Physics, University of North Bengal, Raja Rammohunpur, Siliguri-734013, Darjeeling, India

    Trinakhi Roy, Rajat Biswas & Suman Chatterjee

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  1. Trinakhi Roy
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Correspondence to Suman Chatterjee.

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Trinakhi Roy, Biswas, R. & Chatterjee, S. An Investigation on the Stability Enhancement of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Fabricated with Ethyl Cellulose Based Gel Electrolyte. Appl. Sol. Energy 57, 23–29 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3103/S0003701X21010084

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