Journal
CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS
Volume 28, Issue 18, Pages 6493-6500Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b01590
Keywords
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Funding
- Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST) from the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) [22107003, 2206]
- CREST, JST
- MEXT
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [15K13780] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Nanostructured liquid-crystalline (LC) electrolytes have been developed for efficient and stable quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Two types of ionic LC assemblies for electrolytes have been designed: (i) noncovalent assemblies of two-component mixtures consisting of I-2-doped imidazolium ionic liquids and carbonate-terminated mesogenic compounds (noncovalent type) and (ii) single-component mesogenic compounds covalently bonding an imidazolium moiety doped with I-2 (covalent type). These mesogenic compounds are designed with flexible oligooxyethylene spacers connecting the mesogenic and the polar moieties. The oligooxyethylene-based material design inhibits crystallization and leads to enhanced ion transport as compared to alkyl-linked analogues due to the higher flexibility of the oligooxyethylene spacer. The noncovalent type mixtures exhibit a more than 10 times higher I-3(-) diffusion coefficient compared to the covalent type assemblies. DSSCs containing the noncovalent type liquid crystals show power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of up to 5.8 +/- 0.2% at 30 degrees C and 0.9 +/- 0.1% at 120 degrees C. In contrast, solar cells containing the covalent type electrolytes show significant increase in PCE up to 2.4 +/- 0.1% at 120 degrees C and show superior performance to the noncovalent type-based devices at temperature above 90 degrees C. Furthermore, the LC-DSSCs exhibit excellent long-term stability over 1000 h. These novel electrolyte designs open unexplored paths for the development of DSSCs capable of efficient conversion of light to electricity in a wide range of temperatures.
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