Development of electrolyte system for dye-sensitized solar cell

The development and study three electrolyte systems composed of liquid electrolyte (LE: GBL/NMP/MI/I2/PY), hybrid gel polymer electrolyte (HGPE: PAA/PEG/GBL/NMP/MI/I2) and composite polymer electrolyte (CPE: PEO/MI/I2). The bigger size of metal ion affected to highest ionic conductivity. Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) based on three electrolyte systems (be liquid electrolyte, hybrid gel polymer electrolyte and composite polymer electrolyte) have been studied. The effect of metal sixe on device performance found that the overall conversion efficiency decreased with increasing metal ion size. The ionic conductivity of three electrolyte systems are 7.34, 0.91 and 4.46x10-3 mS cm-1 in LE, HGPE and CPE, respectively. The liquid electrolyte shows highest ionic conductivity due high ion mobility. Composite polymer electrolyte shows highest thermal stability (260 C).
The DSSC was tested by a Sun Simulator set 80 mW cm-2 and N3-dye as sensitizer. The overall efficiency of devices based on LE, HGPE and CPE systems are 2.68, 0.85, 2.79%, respectively. Thoeretically DSSC based on liquid electrolyte should displayed the highest photoelectrical parameter but the cell fabrication problem caused the deviation from the tendency.