Issue 6, 2019

An imidazolium iodide salt as a bifunctional co-adsorbent for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells: improvements of electron lifetime and charge collection efficiency

Abstract

To promote dye regeneration, 1,2-dimethyl-3-acetyl-imidazolium iodide (DMA-II) is synthesized and applied as a bifunctional co-adsorbent for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. The DMA-II can be co-adsorbed onto the TiO2 surface with the dye molecules due to the presence of a carboxy group, and the coadsorption can thus reduce the dye aggregation. Moreover, the I species existing in the co-adsorbent are close to the dye molecules, which is favorable for fast dye regeneration and hence photocurrent generation. As compared to the typically used co-adsorbent, deoxycholic acid (DCA) that does not contain iodide, the DMA-II co-adsorbent enhances the electron lifetime and electron collection yield significantly, because the iodide in the co-adsorbent can quickly reduce the dye cation formed upon electron injection to its original neutral state. As a result, the DMA-II co-adsorbent (1 mM) achieves a power conversion efficiency of 8.97% for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells under AM 1.5 G (100 mW cm−2) illumination, which is higher than that (7.35%) without co-adsorption and outperforms DCA co-adsorption at 1 mM (7.81%) and at 20 mM (8.24%). Importantly, the quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell with DMA-II coadsorption demonstrates good long-term stability with an efficiency drop less than 10% after one-sun soaking for 1000 h.

Graphical abstract: An imidazolium iodide salt as a bifunctional co-adsorbent for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells: improvements of electron lifetime and charge collection efficiency

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Nov 2018
Accepted
07 Jan 2019
First published
09 Jan 2019

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019,7, 2702-2708

An imidazolium iodide salt as a bifunctional co-adsorbent for quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells: improvements of electron lifetime and charge collection efficiency

H. Cheng, M. Wang, Y. Li, G. Zhao and Z. Wang, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 2702 DOI: 10.1039/C8TA11333E

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