Monday, June 03, 2013

Formulations and processing of nanocrystalline TiO 2 films for the different requirements of plastic, metal and glass dye solar cell applications

Valerio Zardetto, Gabriele De Angelis, Luigi Vesce, Valentina Caratto, Claudia Mazzuca, Jacek Gasiorowski, Andrea Reale, Aldo Di Carlo and Thomas M Brown



We carried out a systematic study on the effect of nanocrystalline TiO 2 paste formulations and temperature treatment on the performance of dye solar cells (DSCs) over a large temperature range, to provide useful information for the fabrication of both plastic and metal flexible devices. We compared conventional screen-printable and binder-free TiO 2 pastes with a new formulation which includes hydroxylethyl cellulose (HEC), enabling the study of the effect of organic materials in the TiO 2 layer in the whole 25–600 ° C temperature range. Differently from the binder-free formulations where the device efficiency rose monotonically with temperature, the use of cellulose binders led to remarkably different trends depending on their pyrolysis and decomposition thresholds and solubility, especially at those temperatures compatible with plastic foils. Above 325 ° C, where metal foil can be used as substrates, the efficiencies become similar to those of th...



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