Review—Polyethylene Oxide-Based Nanocomposites as Polymer Electrolytes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Application

Abstract

Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional photovoltaic technologies due to their low cost, high efficiency, and potential for flexible and transparent design. Over the past few years, there have been relentless attempts to make this technology much more efficient. The utilization of polyethylene oxide (PEO)-carbon nanomaterial composites in DSSCs has shown much interest due to improved ionic conductivity, photochemical, and photovoltaic properties. Furthermore, being a crucial component of DSSCs, polymer electrolytes (PEs) have gained significant research interest over liquid electrolytes due to several advantages, including reduced device degradation and costs with improved stability. This paper compares the photochemical and photovoltaic performances of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) fabricated with Polymer electrolytes (PEs) composed of PEO-based nanocomposites, including carbon nanotubes (CNT), carbon black (CB), and Graphene. The discussion also includes the evaluation of their effectiveness as nanofillers for DSSCs. The utilization of these PEO-nanocomposite PEs has been observed to show potential changes in the overall performance of DSSCs, which could significantly impact future research and the outlook in the field of photovoltaic technologies.