Synthesis of TiO₂ Nanofiber as Photoanode of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC)

Abstract

Recently, dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) are considered to replace the previous generation of solar cells. DSSC uses an organic dye to absorb light and convert it to electricity. One-dimensional morphological structure of photoanode that provides a straight pathway for electron transport can improve the efficiency of DSSC. TiO2 nanofibers is one-dimensional structure of oxide semiconductor material commonly used as photoanode in DSSC. A simple method to synthesis continuous nanofiber is electrospinning method that use the influence of electrostatic forces. The nanofiber’s diameter that produced by electrospinning method depends on several parameters, one of which is the applied voltage. This study reports the synthesis of TiO2 nanofibers with varying the applied voltages from 10 kV to 14 kV and their performance as photoanode in DSSC. TiO2 nanofibers were electrospun directly onto a TiO2-coated fluorine tin oxide (FTO) substrate from a mixture of titanium (IV) propoxide (TTIP), triton X-100, acetic acid, poly (vinyl) acetate (PVAc) that were dissolved in dimethyl formamide (DMF). TiO2 nanofiber photoanodes were then immersed in ruthenium (II) dye, stacked with a counter electrode, and finally the electrolyte was injected between them. Based on the SEM results, we found that the beads disappeared with increasing applied voltage. The XRD pattern of TiO2 nanofibers indicates the presence of the anatase phase. Based on the photocurrent-voltage characteristic, TiO2 nanofibers produced by applied voltage of 14 kV shows the highest efficiency of 1.11% with JSC 4.78 mA/cm2, VOC 0.74 Volt and fill factor (FF) of 31.37%.