Photocurrent Density Enhancement of DSSC with Existence of ZnO in TiO2 Based Photoanode

Lusi Safriani, Nurfitriani Nurfitriani, Ayunita Chintia Celline, Annisa Aprilia, Yukio Furukawa

Abstract

One of the important components of a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is photoanode which plays a critical role serving as the center of conversion energy. Photoanode consists of transparent conducting substrate, a semiconductor layer, and dyes molecules as sensitizers. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is widely used as a photoanode because it is a mesoporous and stable material despite its high recombination rate. To reduce the recombination rate and improve electron transport, TiO2 is combined with other materials such as ZnO to form TiO2/ZnO composites. ZnO is a good choice because it has higher electron mobility than TiO2 to inhibit recombination. The synthesis process of TiO2/ZnO composites was carried out using the sol-gel method with variations in the weight percentage of ZnO. The TiO2/ZnO composite was then applied as a photoanode in DSSC. The J-V measurement results shows that the DSSC with TiO2/ZnO 25wt% composite layer as the photoanode produced the highest efficiency of 0.86%. This increase in efficiency was due to an increase in the photo-current of photoanodes that have more ZnO content. The presence of ZnO leads to faster-moving electron transport, therefore reducing recombination and increasing efficiency.

Keywords

DSSC; photoanode; TiO2; ZnO; composites

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References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.13057/ijap.v13i2.74821

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