Excellent anti-fogging dye-sensitized solar cells based on superhydrophilic nanoparticle coatings

We present a facile method for producing anti-fogging (AF) and anti-reflection (AR) coating functionalized photoanodes via one-step SiO2 nanoparticle coating for high performance solid state dye-sensitized solar cells (ssDSSCs). The AF and AR coating functionalized photoanodes are prepared by spin-coating of partially aggregated SiO2 colloidal solution. Poly((1-(4-ethenylphenyl)methyl)-3-butyl-imidazolium iodide) (PEBII), prepared via free radical polymerization, is used as a solid electrolyte in I-2-free ssDSSCs. We systematically investigate the enhanced light harvesting characteristics of AF and AR coating functionalized photoanode-based ssDSSCs by measuring UV-visible spectroscopy, incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) curves under fogging conditions. Compared with conventional photoanode based ssDSSCs, the AF and AR coating functionalized photoanodes substantially suppress fogging and reduce reflection, leading to significantly enhanced light harvesting, especially under fogging conditions. ssDSSCs made of AF and AR coating functionalized photoanodes exhibit an improved photovoltaic efficiency of 6.0% and 5.9% under non-fogging and fogging conditions, respectively, and retain their device efficiencies for at least 20 days, which is a significant improvement of ssDSSCs with conventional photoanodes (4.7% and 1.9% under non-fogging and fogging conditions, respectively). We believe that AF and AR functionalization via one-step SiO2 colloidal coating is a promising method for enhancing light harvesting properties in various solar energy conversion applications.