Performance evaluation of titanium dioxide based dye-sensitized solar cells under the influence of anodization steps, nanotube length and ionic liquid-free redox electrolyte solvents

In this work, highly ordered titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotube (NT) arrays were synthesized on titanium foil using electrochemical anodization method. The morphological aspects of the nanotubes based on different anodization duration and number of anodization steps (maximum two) have been investigated. The nanotube arrays subsequently used as photoanode in a dye -sensitized solar cell (DSSC) assembly. The studies on the effects of different solvents for triiodide/iodide redox electrolyte and NT length towards the performance of DSSC were conducted. It is known that electrolyte solvent can significantly affect the photovoltaic conversion efficiency. It is noteworthy that longer NT length tends to yield higher efficiency due to better dye adsorption. However, when the NTs exceeded certain length the efficiency decreases instead: Meanwhile, a comparison of DSSC performance based on number of anodization steps on titanium was performed. Highly ordered NT arrays could be obtained using two-steps anodization, which proved to have positive effects on the DSSC performance. The highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency in this work is 2.04%, achieved by two-step anodization. The corresponding average nanotubes length was similar to 18 mu m with acetonitrile (ACN) as the redox electrolyte solvent. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.