Transparent conductive oxide‐less (TCO‐less) dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been fabricated and characterized using nanoporous TiO 2 ‐coated stainless steel metal mesh as flexible photoanode and cobalt bipyridyl complex (Co(bpy))‐based one electron redox shuttle electrolyte. Attempts have been made towards enhancing the efficiency of TCO‐less DSSCs to match with their TCO‐based DSSC counterparts. It has been found that surface protection of metal mesh is highly required for enhancing the efficiency of TCO‐less DSSCs specially using cobalt electrolytes as confirmed by dark current–voltage characteristics. Photocurrent action spectra clearly reveal that TCO‐based DSSCs using (Co(bpy)) electrolyte exhibits photon harvesting (incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) 52%) in the 370–450 nm wavelength region as compared to photon harvesting at peak absorption of the dye (IPCE 56% at 550 nm), which is almost the same (IPCE 47%) in the 400–610 nm wavelength region for TCO‐less DSSCs. Under similar experimental conditions, replacing indoline dye D‐205 to porphyrin‐based dye YD2‐o‐C8 led to the enhancement in the photoconversion efficiency from 3.33% to 4.84% under simulated solar irradiation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Back contact transparent conductive oxide‐less (TCO‐less) dye‐sensitized solar cells utilizing cobalt complex‐based redox electrolyte having prospect of cost reduction due to reduced TCO content and enhanced photon harvesting in lower wavelength region due to less color of the electrolyte are being reported. Coating of thin layer of Ti metal (240 nm) on the stainless steel mesh as a charge recombination blocking layer led to drastic enhancement in the photoconversion efficiency from 0.66% (bare metal mesh) to 3.33% after the Ti protection. Owing to the bulkier size, sluggish ion diffusion and being more prone to charge recombination with conducting metal substrate for cobalt complex‐based redox species, a strict control for the surface passivation was found to be crucial for further enhancement in the photoconversion efficiency.


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    Title :

    Transparent conductive oxide‐less back contact dye‐sensitized solar cells using cobalt electrolyte



    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2015




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    53.36 Energiedirektumwandler, elektrische Energiespeicher