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Basic Concepts, Engineering, and Advances in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Abstract
The day–by-day increasing need for light energy has reduced the necessary supply of energy for mankind usage and hiked the prices of natural energy resources. To avoid energy tragedy in future, one needs to use the non-degrading sources of energy for energy harvesting. The advancement in solar cell technology allows us to convert the sunlight more efficiently into electrical energy, though the low cost with highly stable and efficient solar cells is still desirable. The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), a class of third-generation photovoltaic cell, have emerged out as economic, eco-friendly, and much easier fabrication process over other existing technologies such as single-crystal Si solar cells, polycrystalline Si solar cells, thin-film solar cells, and other semiconductor (GaAs, CdTe, CuInSe2, etc.) thin films. The main challenge and limiting factor with DSSC’s fabrication are their efficiency and durability in the environment. In the last decade, enormous efforts have been made to improve the efficiency and stability of DSSCs. One of the possible ways is the manipulation of light at nanoscale on some metal–dielectric interface and integrating it on some cheaper electronic devices for highly efficient solar cell applications. On the other hand, the research on modifying the design and fabrication of photoanode, dyes materials, and counter electrode materials have paid huge attention in architecting DSSCs. This chapter provides an insight into the fabrication of DSSCs and the challenges associated with its fabrication, stability, and efficiency.
... TiO2 [208,209], SnO2 [210], ZnO [211], NiO [212], BaSnO3 [213], Nb2O5 [214], and other wide bandgap semiconducting metal oxides are employed as photoanodes, which serve to create excitons by absorbing photons and transporting electrons to the counter electrode. The photoanode is placed on a TCO substrate, which is transparent, has low resistance, and can withstand high temperatures, all of which contribute towards the efficiency of these solar cells [213,215]. To further improve the efficiency of QDSCs, attempts have been made to employ other materials, doping, surface modification, and composite arrangements, amongst other modifications. Nevertheless, TiO2 remains a strong candidate when compared to other materials and arrangements. ...
... Nevertheless, TiO2 remains a strong candidate when compared to other materials and arrangements. Archana et al. [216] and Maiti et al. [215,217] developed a QDSSC using TiO2 as the photoanode, with Cds and CdSe as a sensitizer, achieving efficiencies of 0.75% and 5.01%, respectively. An extensive amount of research has been conducted by various research groups, as summarized in Table 6. ...
... [208,209], SnO 2 [210], ZnO [211], NiO [212], BaSnO 3 [213], Nb 2 O 5 [214], and other wide bandgap semiconducting metal oxides are employed as photoanodes, which serve to create excitons by absorbing photons and transporting electrons to the counter electrode. The photoanode is placed on a TCO substrate, which is transparent, has low resistance, and can withstand high temperatures, all of which contribute towards the efficiency of these solar cells [213,215]. To further improve the efficiency of QDSCs, attempts have been made to employ other materials, doping, surface modification, and composite arrangements, amongst other modifications. Nevertheless, TiO 2 remains a strong candidate when compared to other materials and arrangements. ...
Third-generation solar cells are designed to achieve high power-conversion efficiency while being low-cost to produce. These solar cells have the ability to surpass the Shockley–Queisser limit. This review focuses on different types of third-generation solar cells such as dye-sensitized solar cells, Perovskite-based cells, organic photovoltaics, quantum dot solar cells, and tandem solar cells, a stacked form of different materials utilizing a maximum solar spectrum to achieve high power conversion efficiency. Apart from these solar cells, other third-generation technologies are also discussed, including up-conversion, down-conversion, hot-carrier, and multiple exciton. This review provides an overview of the previous work in the field, alongside an introduction to the technologies, including their working principles and components. Advancements made in the different components and improvements in performance parameters such as the fill factor, open circuit voltage, conversion efficiency, and short-circuit current density are discussed. We also highlight the hurdles preventing these technologies from reaching commercialization.
... Spinel ferrite Iron oxide Green energy Hydroelectric cell Porosity Electrical resistance Magnesium ferrite © Springer Nature © Springer Nature 9/12/21, 7:26 AM eProofing https://eproofing.springer.com/ePb/printpage_bks/Z6rJGQw8CrgGeQ17cmRhj9Mghb1Shk5yhHntNbv7zXD_HUSxbIdKtrVsA0XEu6TIazbW5nC3IqSUv-OdZUnBmRUbPiNe6gUvCSDuFyWSX9HFBDMvAsNLaDln0a… 3/44 cell, hydrogen energy, geothermal energy and biomass energy [ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13, 14, 15,16,17,18,19,20 ]. The extensive use of traditional sources such as oil, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels which not only make the environment unhealthy for living but also has raised several questions such as continuous carbon emissions, global warming, climate change, greenhouse effect and rapid depletion of natural resources of energy [ 10, 14,17,21 ]. ...
... The photocatalytic activity can take place by exciting the electron of titanium dioxide in UV region which generates the electron-hole pairs that are useful to split the water molecules. Unfortunately, the large rapid recombination of electron and hole at the scale of 10 ns makes the process inefficient [ 12,117 ]. ions sitting at the corners of three equilateral triangles [ 57,60,123,124,125,126,127 ]. ...
There are many conventional ways of producing energy at large scales such as fossil fuels, hydroelectric power station, wind energy, solar cell plants, marine energy, etc., but most of these require bulky plantation, huge manpower, wide land occupation and are non-portable and expensive to handle too. In the twenty-first century, there is still a huge gap between worldwide energy supply and its demand. The advances in the technology sector have also increased the consumption of energy, but the sources of generating the renewable energy remain limited. In order to account for these problems in recent years, several methods have been adopted and a significant research in this direction has been made by the invention of the hydroelectric cell by Dr. R. K. Kotnala’s group in 2016. Instead of using the magnetic character in the ferrite nanostructures, these nanomaterials were first time effectively exploited for direct energy harvesting application by using their capability to dissociate the absorbed water molecules on its porous surface. This allows the production of ions, which is then followed by the charge transfer of hydronium, hydroxyl and hydrogen ions between the electrodes of the ferrite nanostructures and results in the generation of an electric current across the circuit. The concept of the hydroelectric cell is new, and these cells are easily portable, inexpensive, biodegradable and eco-friendly in nature. This chapter provides an insight on the concept of spinel ferrite nanostructures for the application in the hydroelectric cell.
Different types of contaminants are released to wastewater with the rapid
increase in industrial activities, such as heavy metal ions, organics, and hazard organ�isms which are serious harmful to human health. Heavy metal ions, like Pb2+, Cd2+,
Zn2+, and Hg2+ can cause severe health problems in animals and human for its
highly toxic nature. The use of agricultural by-products has been widely investi�gated as an efficient alternative for current costly methods of removing heavy metals
from wastewater. Chemical composition of Rice Straw contains cellulose (32–47%),
hemicellulose (19–27%) and lignin (5–24%). Rice Straw has several characteristics
to predict the functional groups on the surface of the biomass that make it a potential
adsorbent with binding sites capable of taking up metals from aqueous solutions. In
our study, the active sites of Rice Straw were modified using CoFe2O4 nanoparticles
which cause increasing their metal-binding capacity. Adsorption experiments were
carried out using modified Rice Straw to absorb some heavy metals ions like Fe3+,
Mn2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Zn2+, Ni2+ and Pb2+ from aqueous solution. The prepared samples
were characterized using different analytical techniques. Our results of adsorption
indicated that Rice Straw treated with CoFe2O4 spinel ferrite nanoparticles appeared
to be more efficient to remove heavy metal ions from wastewater
With available different solar cell technology, adequate conversion efficiency is a major concern with reference to important parameters like energy payback time, inexpensive to fabricate: Production cost, lightweight, customizable, flexible, less adverse environmental effects. Such solar cells are developed using a modern version of dye synthesized solar cells and progress in nanotechnology known as quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSCs). QDSCs attracted researchers due to their high absorption coefficient, tunable bandgap, multiple exciton generation, and fabrication method, and energy payback time. Currently in the laboratory achieved efficiency of QDSCs is 18.1% in comparison to theoretical limits. This review article presents a comprehensive overview of the efficiency of QDSC and its status under the effect of photoanode and Quantum Dot sensitizers.
Controlling the moisture level in air and gases is an important aspect in defense, weather station, industry, laboratory and healthcare systems. The accurate measurement and sensing of the humidity/moisture level in the surrounding environment can help to maintain the temperature level for ideal living conditions; from a safety point of view, it can help to prevent the virus/disease transmission; importantly, it can protect expensive equipment, electronic devices and optical devices against damage which are sensitive to high humidity in the atmosphere. The controlled monitoring, regulation and management of humidity necessarily require humidity sensors with high sensitivity, high stability and low response time. Currently, there are various types of humidity sensors available in the market, but there are always limitations on the practical applications as the main problems are associated with their eco-friendly nature, cost, sensitivity, response time (rapid action) and lifetime. Aiming to address these issues, the spinel ferrite nanostructures arise as promising nanomaterials due to their moderate semiconducting features with high resistance, porous nature and high surface activities enabling easy fabrication of the humidity sensors. This chapter provides an overview of the role of spinel ferrite nanostructures for their applications in humidity sensors.
In the last years, nanoferrites have gained much attention in the fields of bio- and nanomedicine due to their diverse potential applications in magnetic hyperthermia and targeted drug delivery for cancer treatment, as well as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging, among others. These materials are relatively easy to synthesize at low cost and present good physical and chemical stability. Most importantly, their magnetic properties can be precisely tuned by varying the nature and content of the divalent co-ion (e.g. Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, Mn²⁺, etc.) or co-ions in mixed ferrites. In this context, evaluating their toxicity and biocompatibility is mandatory prior to their application in pharmaceutical products. In this chapter, we summarize the state-of-the-art of nanoferrites’ toxicity evaluation, both in vitro and in vivo.
Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) films were prepared by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering with a metal Sn target. Two different modes were applied to deposit the FTO films, and their respective optical and electrical properties were evaluated. In the transition mode, the minimum resistivity of the FTO film was 1.63 × 10 − 3 Ω cm with average transmittance of 80.0% in the visible region. Furthermore, FTO films deposited in the oxide mode and mixed simultaneously with H 2 could achieve even lower resistivity to 8.42 × 10 − 4 Ω cm and higher average transmittance up to 81.1% in the visible region.
Herein, we developed two new X type D-(π-A)2 organic dyes JX1 and JX2, and cosensitized with porphyrin dyes JP1 and JP3 for DSSCs. For JX1 and JX2, the electron donors were modified with alkylbenzene containing long carbon chains, which can effectively inhibit dye aggregation and reduce charge recombination. Meanwhile, two benzoic acid groups were used as anchoring groups, we can see that the binding ways of JX1 and JX2 were both tetradentate mode from FT-IR analysis, this strategy helps to enhance the adsorption stability of dye molecules and increase the amount of dye adsorption. The DSSC based on JX1 showed a PCE of 3.67%, and the DSSC based on JX2 showed a higher PCE of 4.36%, the difference between them should be mainly attributed to the higher dye adsorption and better light-harvesting ability of JX2. In addition, developing new and efficient dyes is not the only way to improve performance of DSSCs, cosensitization is also one of the effective ways to achieve this goal. Although porphyrin has good optical absorption properties, there is a weak absorption in the range of about 500–600 nm, cosensitization can make up for the defect in this range well. After cosensitization, the effects on light-harvesting ability, photovoltaic performance and charge recombination were studied in detail. Obviously, the DSSC based on JP3+JX2 showed excellent light response and a high PCE of 8.08%, which exhibited remarkable PCE improvements of 26% compared with the DSSC based on JP3 (6.40%). The results show that method of filling up porphyrin dye with suitable organic dyes can effectively improve the performance of DSSCs.
Evolution of solar cell based on natural molecules flourished expeditiously, which is a good alternative for silicon-based solar cells or thin film technologies due to their low assembling cost, lightweight and flexibility. But natural dye-based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has low cell efficiency and stability, which limits the use of organic solar cells. In this research, natural green dye extracted from spinach (Spinacia oleracea) and used as a sensitizer source for natural dye-based DSSC. The measured cell efficiency of natural green dye-sensitized DSSC was 0.398%. Also, the cell stability test has been carried out by measuring the degradation rate (cell efficiency) by aging the dye molecule for DSSC has been conducted after 48, 96, 144 and 196 h under 100mW/cm2 illumination (1.5 AM) at the ambient condition.
Two porphyrin sensitizers, SGT-023 and SGT-025, were synthesized through acceptor structural engineering. SGT-023 was designed by replacing the commonly used benzothiadiazole (BTD) unit in the well-known platform of D-porphyrin-triple bond-BTD-acceptor sensitizers (e.g., SM315 and SGT-021) with a pyridothiadiazole unit as a stronger electron-withdrawing group. As for SGT-025, an additional ethynylenebridge was inserted into the acceptor part of the well-known skeleton of D-porphyrin-triple bond-BTD-acceptor sensitizers. The impact of the auxiliary acceptors on the optical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties was investigated and compared with a benchmark dye of SGT-021 developed by our group. Consequently, both porphyrin sensitizers could red-shift the absorption range and downshifted the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level, which was supposed to achieve higher light harvest efficiency (LHE). Under standard global AM 1.5G solar light conditions, SGT-025 reached a relatively high maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.0 %, which was a little lower than the reference dye SGT-021 (12.6 %); and a moderate PCE of 5.6% was obtained by SGT-023. The main reason is the lower charge collection efficiency, which can be attributed to the tilted dye adsorption mode on TiO2. This may allow for faster charge recombination which eventually leads to lower Jsc, Voc and PCE.
Pillar-like mesoporous carbon doped with oxygen and sulfur heteroatoms was obtained through thermal pyrolysis of a zinc-based metal-organic framework, Zn-BTC (BTC = 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid), followed by acid treatment and sulfurization. The pillar morphology remained after acid etching and sulfur doping, while the content of disordered carbon and the structural defects were significantly increased, resulting in an increase in the electroactive sites for catalyzing the iodide/triiodide ions. In addition, the incorporation of sulfur heteroatoms into carbon frameworks could cause the reduction of oxygen-doped carbon pillars, improving the apparent electrocatalytic activity. The cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy showed that the oxygen and sulfur dual-doped (OS-doped) carbon electrode has better electrocatalytic performance than the single oxygen doped (O-doped) carbon electrode, probably owing to the sulfur doping in carbon matrix that offered abundant electroactive site for boosting the iodide/triiodide redox shuttle. Dye-sensitized solar cell employing OS-doped carbon exhibited power conversion efficiency of 10.2%, greater than that using Pt (9.4%), O-doped carbon (8.0%), and ZnO-doped carbon (7.7%).
The Barium Titanate Oxide (BTO) enhanced TiO2 nanorod array was successfully synthesized with different NaOH precipitating agent via two steps hydrothermal method. The structure and the morphology of products were characterized by XRD, SEM couple with EDS and TEM. The results showed the formation of BaTiO3 and BaTi4O9 phases on the TiO2 surface. The optical property of pure TiO2 and BTO-TiO2 heterostructure were investigated by UV–visible spectroscopy. The band gap of all BTO-TiO2 samples were only slightly decreased when compared to the bare TiO2 film. The photoconversion efficiency of the TiO2 and BTO-TiO2 photoanodes were measured from the J-V characteristic. The efficiency of DSSCs based on the pure TiO2 was 2.44% while the highest performance of DSSCs based on BTO-TiO2 was 4.29%. The charge transfer resistance and the electron lifetime (τe) were further investigated by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The increase of DSSCs performance is due to the better charge transfer resistance and the lower recombination during the electrons transfer across the photoanode of DSSCs, as indicated from the Nyquist and Bode plots.
Among all PV devices, DSSCs are believed to be one of the most promising devices, owing to their low cost, facile methods of fabrication and eco-friendly nature. Several components such are titanium dioxide/metal oxide-based photoanode, platinum/composite material based counter electrode and sensitizing dye along with the electrolyte are the basic components which effects the performance of DSSCs. Counter electrode collects the electron from an external circuit and helps in the regeneration of dye by oxidation-reduction of electrolyte, which significantly effects the overall performance of PV devices. Several materials such as carbonaceous materials, conducting polymers, oxides, and sulfides have been investigated as the low cost and highly stable material for the potential replacement for an expensive Pt-based counter electrode in DSSCs. In this Review, an attempt has been made to present recent achievements to replace Platinum (Pt) counter electrode with other inexpensive and earth abundant materials for DSSCs. This article systematically reviews the counter electrodes in DSSCs and provides review focused on Pt-TCO free counter electrodes. The main problems and challenges such as synthesis and fabrication of various CE, commercialization of DSSCs are addressed in detail with a conclusion and proposition section.
Solar cells can be divided into three different generations. The first-generation solar cells are made from crystalline semiconductor wafers (200-300 μm), and 90% of the solar cell market is based on these first-generation solar cells. Approximately 40% of the cost of a solar module is due to thick silicon wafers. Second-generation solar cells are based on thin-film (1-2 μm) technology. This film is deposited on low-cost substrates such as glass, plastic, or stainless steel. The main focus of these solar cells is lowering the amount of material used. They contain a variety of semiconductors like cadmium telluride, copper indium diselenide, and so on, as well as amorphous and polycrystalline silicon. A major limitation of thin-film solar cells is their ineffective absorbance near bandgap, in particular, for the indirect bandgap semiconductor silicon. Therefore, it is important to trap light inside the solar cell in order to increase the absorbance. Third-generation solar cells are presently investigated with the goal to increase the efficiency using second-generation SCs.