Photovoltaic Performance of Nanoporous TiO2 Replicas Synthesized from Mesoporous Materials for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

For dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), highly ordered nanoporous TiO2 materials with crystalline frameworks were successfully synthesized from different silica templates including SBA-15, KIT-6 and MSU-H. A photoelectrode in DSSC was fabricated by adsorbing cis-bis(isothiocyanato)bis(2,2'-bipyridyl-4,4'-dicarboxylato)-ruthenium(II)bis-tetrabutylammonium dye (N719) onto the prepared TiO2 nanoparticles. The samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, FE-SEM, AFM and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), and FT-IR analysis. An investigation of the influence of the bonding structure of N719 dye and nanoporous TiO2 on the photovoltaic performance of DSSC revealed that the bonding structure of N719 on TiO2 films is caused by the unidentate and bidentate linkage. Based on the overall conversion efficiency (eta), fill factor (FF), open-circuit voltage (V-OC) and short-circuit current (I-SC) from the I-V curves measured, it was observed that the photoelectric performance is strongly dependent on the dispersion properties of the nanoporous TiO2 replicas from mesoporous silica templates.