Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society (한국세라믹학회지)

The Korean Ceramic Society (한국세라믹학회)
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Properties of Working Electrodes with Polystyrene Beads Addition in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Noh, Yunyoung (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Seoul) ;
  • Choi, Minkyoung (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Seoul) ;
  • Song, Ohsung (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Seoul)
  • Received : 2015.04.02
  • Accepted : 2015.07.13
  • Published : 2015.09.30
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Abstract

We prepared the $TiO_2$ layer with 0 ~ 4 wt% of polystyrene (PS) beads having a radius of 250 nm to increase the dye adsorption and energy conversion efficiency (ECE) of a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Then, we fabricated DSSCs using $0.45cm^2$ active area. FE-SEM was used to characterize the microstructure consisting of $TiO_2$ layer and PS beads. UV-VIS-NIR was used to determine the optical absorbance of working electrodes (WEs). Solar simulator and potentiostat were used to determine the photovoltaic properties. We observed that pores having a radius of 250 nm were formed with the density of $0.15ea/{\mu}m^2$ in $TiO_2$ layers after conducting the sintering process. The absorbance in visible light regime was found to increase with the increase in the amount of PS beads. The ECE increased from 4.66% to 5.25% when the amount of PS beads was increased from 0 to 4 wt%. This is because the pores of PS beads increased the adsorption of dye. Our results indicate that the ECE of the DSSCs can be enhanced by the addition of an appropriate amount of PS beads into $TiO_2$ layers.

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