A simple and efficient method using polymer dispersion to prepare controllable nanoporous TiO2 anodes for dye-sensitized solar cells.

An efficient method using a polymer dispersion (PD) based on a copolymer of styrene and butyl acrylate to prepare TiO2 electrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) was introduced. The obtained TiO2 nanoporous film was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. A porous structure with pore size distribution from tens of nanometers to several hundred nanometers or even micrometers was characterized. This offered the film a feature of high haze factor and porosity. When using the film as photoanode, a quasi-solid-state DSC was successfully fabricated. The device showed an improved per-weight-efficiency by a factor of 2.7, resulting from the reduced interfacial resistance and the enhanced light scattering effect revealed by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and transmittance spectroscopy, respectively. The developed PD-based colloid is promising to be applied in production on a large scale as a result of its simple prescription and stability during storage. A proposal to further improve the porous film is also introduced at the end of the paper.