Elsevier

Solar Energy

Volume 188, August 2019, Pages 667-684
Solar Energy

Influence of synthesized pyridine and tetra ethylene glycol derivatives in poly (vinylidene fluoride)/poly (ethylene oxide) with Ti coated back contact dye-sensitized solar cells

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.06.054Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Introduction of novel back contact dye-sensitized solar cells.

  • Simple cost effective organic compounds.

  • Blended polymer electrolyte improves electrical conductivity.

  • Ti metal as back contact electrode based BC DSSC shows efficiency of 8.9%.

Abstract

A newly designed back contact dye-sensitized solar cells (BCDSSC) with back contact electrode (BCE) of Ti for electron collection, is placed on the side opposite to side of light irradiation on TiO2 with synthesized organic compound doped poly (ethylene oxide)/poly (vinylidene fluoride)/potassium iodide/Iodine polymer electrolyte was introduced for the application of solar energy to electric energy conversion. The surface morphology of the polymer electrolyte study was carried out by SEM, XRD, DSC, DTA, TGA and it proves that the synthesized organic compounds enhances the amorphous nature of the polymer due to well coordinate with redox couple. The movement of I/I3 characterized with UV–vis spectroscopy proves of organic compound with Iodine in the redox couple to decrease the sublimation of iodine. The conductivity of polymer/potassium iodide/iodine/organic compound shows high conductivity of 4.9 × 10−4 S cm−1 and it confirms that the importance of synthesized organic compounds in polymer electrolyte. The TiO2/Ti (BCE)/N3dye/PEO/PVdF/Potassium iodide/Iodine/PDSD/Pt compounds yielded an efficiency of 8.9% under illumination of 70 mW cm−2 at A.M. 1.5.

Introduction

The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) intensely focused for its ease of fabrication and considerable energy storage device (Kusama and Arakawa, 2004a, Regan and Gratzel, 1991, Nazeeruddin et al., 1993, Hung et al., 1997, Hagfeldt and Gratzel, 1995). In dye-sensitized solar cell the N3 dye coated TiO2 acts as photo anode, KI and I2 in acetonitrile as a redox liquid electrolyte (I/I3) and Pt as counter electrode. The research groups focused to modify the of liquid redox electrolyte, due to the leakages and affecting stability of DSSC (Ganesan et al., 2008, Gratzel, 2004, Nogueira et al., 2006, Bandara and Weerasingha, 2005, Gobeyehu et al., 2002) and it was replaced with organic/inorganic hole transport materials, gel and polymer electrolytes and polymer blending methods (Kang et al., 2004, Nogueira et al., 2001, Kim et al., 2005, Yang et al., 2008, Nogueira et al., 2004, Aram et al., 2015, Wieczorek et al., 1989, Croce et al., 1998, Wu et al., 2007, Kang et al., 2005, Wu et al., 2006, Lee et al., 2008, Ganesan et al., 2011). The polymer blend technique reports high conductivity, mechanical stability of the polymer electrolyte with enhanced performance in DSSC (Croce et al., 1998, Han et al., 2005). The addition of organic compounds in to the blended polymer electrolyte reduces the sublimation of iodine in the redox couple and tends to shift the negative band of TiO2 and results in enhance the open-circuit voltage (Voc) in DSSC (Ganesan et al., 2008, Kusama et al., 2005, Kusama and Arakawa, 2004b, Kusama et al., 2008). In recent years, the research groups concentrate on back contact dye-sensitized solar cells to increase the stability and efficiency of DSSC. The photosensitizing dye (N3 dye) works as a photon adsorption from the sun light and, incorporation with the TiO2 layer, converts the solar energy into electric energy. The Back contact dye-sensitized solar cells along with Ti or Al metal as back contact electrode and redox electrolyte such as I/I3 and Co2+/Co3+ at the electronics of charge-separating boundaries decreases the energy losses and added to developed a better short circuit current density (Jsc) and reports high efficiency of the solar cell (Soni et al., 2015, Md. Zaman et al., 2016, Fuke et al., 2008, Nobuhiro et al., 2007, Soni et al., 2015). In this paper, the synthesized organic compounds incorporate with PEO-PVdF/Potassium iodide/Iodine to enhance the conductivity of the polymer and these polymer blend electrolyte used as electrolyte with Ti (BCE) coated back contact dye-sensitized solar cells to improves the solar energy to electric energy conversion efficiency.

Section snippets

Chemicals and reagents

Poly (ethylene oxide) (molecular wieght ∼ 5 × 106) and poly (vinylidene fluoride) (molecular weight ∼ 270,000), the organic chemicals were purchased from Aldrich. Organic compounds, Potassium iodide, Iodine and Dimethyl formamide purchased from Merck.

Synthesis of 2, 6- bis (2-thiopyridyl) pyridine (BTPP)

1.85 g of 2-mercaptopyridine (1.85 g) and metal Potassium (0.8 g)in 50 ml diglyme was stirred at 70° C after stirring 1.2 g of 2, 6-dibromo (1.22 g) pyridine added and the final mixture stir about 8 h at 90 °C. The solvent was removed completely

Differential scanning calorimmetry (DSC) studies

The thermal studies (DSC) of synthesized organic compounds such as PETP, PEPP, PDSD, PEP, BEB, BTPP and BNIN doped PVdF-PEO/Potassium iodide/Iodine was observed in Fig. 9a–h from −60 to 300 °C under nitrogen atmosphere. The DSC graph reports melting temperature (Tm), melting enthalpy (ΔHm) and degree of crystallinity (Xc) and the values are listed in Table 1. As seen in Fig. 9a the polymer blend of PVdF-PEO/potassium iodide/Iodine which shows a little broadening curve and the melting

Conclusion

The influence of synthesized pyridine and tetra ethylene glycol derivatives such as PETP, PEPP, PDSD, PEP, BEB, BTPP and BNIN on PVdF-PEO/KI/I2 along with Ti as back contact dye-sensitized solar cell was successfully studied. The FTIR study proves the interaction of organic compounds with PVdF-PEO/Potassium iodide/Iodine. The TG, DTA, DSC SEM and XRD data also confirm smooth surface and low crystallinity of polymer with the addition of PETP, PEPP, PDSD, PEP, BEB, BTPP and BNIN in the blended

Declaration of Competing Interest

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Acknowledgment

The author honestly thank to the Department of Science and Technology (DST) Fast Track (CS-378/2013).

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