Promoting Effect of Graphene on Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

In this paper, a simple approach without a prereduction of graphene oxide was exploited to prepare a graphene-doped TiO2 film for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The performance measurement of the DSSCs showed that the incorporation of graphene could increase the short-circuit current density and power conversion efficiency by 52.4 and 55.3%, respectively. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the performance enhancement was due to the promoting effect of graphene on electron transfer instead of the increase of dye loading in TiO2/graphene composite films. However, graphene can also absorb solar light, which could lead to the decrease of light harvest of dye molecules and thus a negative effect on the power conversion efficiency of DSSCs. Furthermore, graphene might decrease the actual dye loading on TiO2 in a TiO2/graphene film, Which can also make a negative contribution to the conversion efficiency. As a result, the promoting effect of graphene is strongly dependent on its content; namely, the efficiency of DSSCs increases to the maximum value and then decreases with increasing graphene content in TiO2/graphene composites.