Performance of nitric acid and ethyl cellulose for improvement dye-sensitized solar cell.

The design innovation and composition of TiO₂ as a photoanode have been continuously studied in recent years to improve the photoconversion performance of Dye-sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC). The important components in the formation of TiO₂ paste are solid content, solvents, and organic compounds as binders. In terms of solvents, water or simple alcohol are not suitable for screen printing methods, because cracking will occur after the annealing process by rapid evaporation. In this report, we investigated the addition of nitric acid (HNO₃) and ethyl cellulose (CH₂CH₃) as a binder for optimize the overall DSSC performance. TiO₂ photoanode was synthesized by screen printing method through the initial stage of making blocking layer with spin coating method. The effect of nitric acid and ethyl cellulose on, TiO₂ powder was studied intensively to determine the best photoconversion performance. TiO₂ films were prepared by varying the process without and with post-treatment. The XRD pattern confirmed the presence of a pure anatase phase of TiO₂. The morphology of the photoanodes surface area were studied through SEM characterization. The characteristics of J-V shows an increasing in photocurrent and efficiency through the post-treatment process. DSSCs based on TiO₂-HNO₃ photoanode with post-treatment exhibited a highest efficiency of 3.59%. We found that the sample with post-treatment process have a smaller impedance than sample without post-treatment with charge transfer resistance (R_CT) of 10 Ω and 23 Ω, respectively. It may indicate that the TiO₂ film with post-treatment have a better interconnection then charge transfer and charge extraction process are more effective and resulting higher efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]