Influence of sintering temperature on the performance of titanium dioxide anode in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells with natural pigment hypericin

Abstract

Dye Sensitized Solar cells (DSSC) are very attractive due to their low cost fabricating methods and used materials. One of the most important parts of the cells is the photoanode. Many semiconducting materials are used for this purpose, but most common one is titanium dioxide (TiO2). Optimal sintering temperature of anode plays important role in performance of TiO2 layer in DSSC, since it provides good electrical contact between particles, which consequently leads to better electron transfer through the cell, but still restricts unfavorable phase transformation. In this paper two identical cells with natural pigment hypericin as sensitizer were assembled with anodes sintered on two different temperatures (500 °C and 600 °C), so their performance parameters could be compared. The ratios between the maximal power densities (Pmax) and solar to electrical energy conversion efficiencies (η) for the two measured cells are 5 times in favor for the cell sintered at 600 °C, which shows the importance of temperature treatment of TiO2 electrodes for better performance of solar cells.