IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v53y2013icp265-270.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analysis of light harvest in terms of current per mole of dye in dye-sensitized solar cells made with opaque and transparent photoanodes

Author

Listed:
  • Jena, Ajay K.
  • Bhargava, Parag

Abstract

Light harvest and I–V characteristics of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) made from transparent TiO2 photoanodes of different thicknesses with and without light scattering layer (LSL) have been studied. The results obtained for transparent TiO2 films, composed of smaller aggregates, with and without LSL were compared with that of opaque films, which were composed of larger aggregates. The light absorption efficiency of the photoanodes has been expressed in terms of current per mole of the dye. Although short circuit photocurrent density (Jsc) increased with thickness/dye loading for cells made with transparent single (∼4 μm), double (∼7 μm) and triple layer (10 μm) films, current per mole of dye for these films decreased. This was ascribed to presence of a fraction of dye molecules, which does not undergo photoexcitation and thus, does not contribute to current. And, this fraction of dye molecules increases with thickness/dye loading. Current per mole of dye was determined to be highest for transparent single layer film with LSL and hence, it can be considered as the most efficient light harvest. Open circuit voltage and dark current in the cells remained similar while Jsc changed with enhancement in light harvest. LSL on the opaque TiO2 film did not improve light harvest and Jsc in the cell while transparent single layer (4 μm) and double layer (∼7 μm) films with LSL exhibited enhancement in Jsc by about 20% and 24% respectively. Moreover, opaque TiO2 film (∼10 μm) having slightly more amount of dye than the TiO2 transparent single layer film (∼4 μm) showed lower current per mole of dye than transparent single layer film with and without LSL. This was because of larger aggregates present in the opaque TiO2 film, which scattered the light within the first few layers of the film such that little light reached the TiO2 layers away from the substrate and thus, a large fraction of dye molecules in these distant layers remained in ground state.

Suggested Citation

  • Jena, Ajay K. & Bhargava, Parag, 2013. "Analysis of light harvest in terms of current per mole of dye in dye-sensitized solar cells made with opaque and transparent photoanodes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 265-270.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:53:y:2013:i:c:p:265-270
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2012.11.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148112007343
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2012.11.017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zouhri, Khalid, 2018. "The effect of iodide and tri-iodide on the dye sensitized solar cell," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 210-225.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:53:y:2013:i:c:p:265-270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.