Investigation of low temperature processed titanium dioxide (TiO2) films for printed dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) for large area flexible applications

Abstract

This paper reports a systematic study of the effect of nano-crystalline titanium dioxide (TiO2) formulations and annealing temperature conditions on the performance of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) realized on fluorine tin oxide (FTO) glass substrates. DSSC fabrication is restricted to high temperature (>150 °C) process-compatible materials by the nano-crystalline process of the TiO2. DSSCs benefit from the use of lower cost materials and offer higher efficiency than organic solar cells but high processing temperatures limit their application on, for example, textile substrates. The aim of this study is to develop and optimize a low temperature processable TiO2 formulation suitable for both screen printing and spray coating. The results from this paper can be applied in future fabrication processes on flexible plastic and fabric substrates. The challenge of this research work is to achieve the smooth deposition and processing at 150 °C of TiO2 layers on glass substrates. We report a maximum DSSC efficiency of 4.3% achieved by screen printing and 2.5% achieved by spray coating on a glass substrate using the new low temperature process.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Sasi Arumugam: orcid.org/0000-0002-7783-1799

ORCID for Michael Tudor: orcid.org/0000-0003-1179-9455

ORCID for Stephen Beeby: orcid.org/0000-0002-0800-1759

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