Search

This work investigated the influence of the organic dyes Orange IV and Eosin Y as photosensitizers on the photovoltaic parameters of ZnO photoelectrode dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). ZnO was prepared by homemade ZnO nanoparticles. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and BET measurements were used to characterize the structures and the morphology of ZnO nanostructures. The Orange IV demonstrated the best performance compared with the cell sensitized with the Eosin Y. This occurred as Orange IV demonstrated the highest molar extinction coefficient.

Silica and montmorillonite-supported silica nanoparticles were prepared via an acid one step sol-gel process. The synthesized solids were characterized using XRD, FTIR, TEM and N2 adsorption. The effect of preparing temperatures on the structure and properties of the silica nanoparticles were studied. The results show that the increase of annealing temperature from 25 to 200℃, don’t change amorphous state of silica. While for montmorillonite-supported silica the clay platelets are delaminated during the sol-gel process. TEM results showed that the average particle size of silica is increased by increasing temperature due to the particle sintering and the clay-silica nanoparticles possessed core–shell morphology with diameter of 29 nm. The surface area measurements showed that by increasing annealing temperature the surface area was decreased due to aggregation of particle. The clay-silica sample showed lower average pore width than that of the silica prepared at 200℃ indicating that it has a macropores structure. The adsorption efficiency of the prepared samples was tested by adsorption of protoporphyrin IX. The highest adsorption efficiency was found for SiO2 prepared at 200℃. Temkin model describe the equilibrium of adsorption of protoporphyrin IX on caly-silica nanoparticles under different conditions.