TiO2 doped-SiO2 Photoanodes for Enhancing Power conversion efficiency in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Risa Rahmawati Sunarya (a), Rahmat Hidayat (b), and Veinardi Suendo (c)*

(a) Chemistry Education Department UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung
(b) Physics Department Institut Teknologi Bandung
(c) Chemistry Department Institut Teknologi Bandung
*E-mail:vsuendo[at]chem.itb.ac.id

Abstract

TiO2 mesoporous nanoparticle films still used as photoanodes for good efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). Although TiO2 has good power conversion efficiency, the electron transport rate is known to be low due to low electron mobility. However, to improve the ability of photanodes to harvest photons some recent research results use a mixture of mesoporous oxide materials. In this research, we used SiO2 microbeads as a mixture of TiO2 with SiO2 weight composition of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20% was done. The TiO2-SiO2 photoanodes film was then coupled with the graphite/rGO-PANI film counter electrode to applied as DSSC. The results of DSSC cell performance with solar simulators showed a significant increase in Jsc and efficiency, from 6.52 to 8.11 mA/cm2 and 2.06 to 2.81% with 10% SiO2, respectively. While TiO2-SiO2 photoanodes, the presence of SiO2 microbeads with larger particle size than TiO2 can scatter light that comes into the photoanode better than the TiO2 nanoparticles, thus they produce more excited electrons that increase the flux of injected electrons into the external circuit. SiO2 helps to create new catalytic active site due to interaction between TiO2 and SiO2. SiO2 as the carrier of TiO2 and helps to obtain a large surface area as well as suitable porous structure.

Keywords: TiO2-SiO2 photoanode, semiconductor materials, dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC)

Topic: Renewable Energy & Energy Storage