Fabrication of DSSC using doctor blades method incorporating polymer electrolytes

Abstract

Abstract Amongst various sources of renewable energy, solar energy is becoming prime due to its advantages of cleanliness, abundance and low operating cost. Currently, amorphous silicon PV cells are most into commercialization but to contradict, they have a very high manufacturing cost and due to usage of hazardous materials, they lead to environmental degradation. Hence, they are less preferred now a days. To overcome these complications, Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are replacing customary cells at a very fast rate. In this research, fabrication of DSSC was done based polymer gel electrolytes prepared by in situ gelation. The ionic properties of the polymer gel electrolyte were also observed with the help of various tests performed like FESEM, FTIR, XRD & TGA. FTIR & XRD affirmed the good electron emission characteristics of the polymer electrolyte. XRD & TGA give amorphous nature and weight loss indication near 360 °C for cell based on polymer electrolytes. The performance evaluation of hence fabricated DSSC’s was done in terms of calculating efficiency, fill factor, current density (short circuit) and photovoltage (open circuit). The efficiency of the cell was found out to be 11.32% and fill factor came out to be 0.439.