Abstract:
Solar energy is a renewable free source of energy that is sustainable and totally
inexhaustible, unlike fossil fuels which are finite. Solar power is clean green electricity
that is either created from sunlight or from heat from the sun. Solar (or photovoltaic) cells
convert the sun’s energy into electricity. Whether they’re adorning your calculator or
orbiting our planet on satellites, they rely on the photoelectric effect: the ability of matter
to emit electrons when a light is shone on it. As the name implies, the mechanism of dye
solar cells is based on the photo electrochemical processes. This paper aims to fabricate
and analyze the performance of dye sensitized solar cell by comparing the utilization of
opaque TiO2 pastes and opaque TiO2 pastes with Fe2O3 doping for the photoelectrodes.
Among other semiconductors, hematite (Fe2O3) is an attractive material because of its
wide abundant, low cost, non-toxic nature. It is gaining importance in photoelectrochemical
devices due to its suitable band gap (∼2.2 eV). It has been reported that
the use of nanostructured materials in the DSSC could enhance the low energy conversion
efficiency of these cells. The current-voltage (I-V) measurements were performed by
using an artificial sun-simulator. As for the counter-electrode, carbon (C ) was used as
the catalyst which was deposited using DC-sputtering technique. Our results revealed that
the cells featuring opaqueTiO2 paste with Fe2O3 doping achieved better photoconversion
efficiencies compared to that of the opaque TiO2 paste. This combination further
increases its optical transmittance and band gap of the photo electrode of DSSC. The sole
purpose was to optimize the characteristics of this material by focusing on its several
characteristics followed by changing the duration of solution preparation, changing the
deposition level on substrates, variation in annealing atmosphere and temperature to
observe the characteristics changes occurred in the film. In each stage of observation
significant characteristics of the film have found which the main execution of this thesis.
