Study on the fabrication and photovoltaic property of TiO2 mesoporous microspheres

Titanium dioxide mesoporous microspheres with high surface area was successfully prepared by a facile one-step hydrothermal approach using polyethylene glycol (PEG, MW 200) as the soft template. Study shows that similar to 15 nm TiO2 nanoparticles was assembled into similar to 1.1 mu m mesoporous microspheres. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of TiO2 microsphere is up to 137 m(2)/g. TiO2 mesoporous microspheres were fabricated onto the surface of fluorine-doped tin oxide glass and used as the photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cells, which exhibits an open circuit photovoltage of 0.80 V and an overall conversion efficiency of 6.6%. Owing to the enhanced dye loading and light-harvesting efficiency, a 26% improvement in the overall conversion efficiency was achieved when compared with the commercial Degussa P-25 nanoparticles. (C) 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.