Template Controlled Synthesis of Mesoporous TiO2 Particles for Efficient Photoanodes in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Aseries of mesoporous TiO2 (MT) materials were synthesized by a hydrothermal procedure using Cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and Poly(ethylene-glycol)-block-poly (propylene-glycol)-block-poly(ethylene-glycol) (P123) as templates, and titanium tetrachloride as a titanium source. The molar ratios of Ti/CTAB and Ti/P123 were optimized via Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurement. MT materials made with the two templates formed rutile and anatase crystal phases as indicated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and laser Raman spectrometry (LRS). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) characterization indicate that the anatase MT material formed by P123 template shows immense potential as photoanode in dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) devices. The analysis of current to voltage (J-V) curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) corroborated the previous characterizations and the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the cells involvingMT using P123 with a Ti/P123 molar ratio of 13: 1 as the templates reached 8.12%, which is much higher than that with CTAB (5.43%) as a template and commercial P25 (5.15%) based devices. (C) 2018 The Electrochemical Society.