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In Situ Synthesis and Integration of Polymer Electrolytes in Nanostructured Electrodes for Photovoltaic Applications
Journal article

In Situ Synthesis and Integration of Polymer Electrolytes in Nanostructured Electrodes for Photovoltaic Applications

Siamak Nejati and Kenneth K. S. Lau
MRS proceedings, v 1312(1), pp 287-292
2011

Abstract

polymer chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (deposition) photovoltaic
The conventional dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is limited by the use of a liquid electrolyte that is prone to leakage and evaporation. Efforts to replace the liquid with a solid equivalent have been met with difficulties in penetrating the mesoporous TiO2 nanostructured photoanode with liquid processing, particularly for photoanode layer thickness greater than 2 μm. Here, initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) is successfully applied to directly synthesize and fill the pores of the mesoporous TiO2 network of up to 12 μm thickness with poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) polymer electrolyte. Comparing with equivalent liquid electrolyte cells, DSSCs integrated with PHEMA polymer electrolyte showed consistently higher open circuit voltage, which is attributed to a decrease in electron recombination with the redox couple at the electrode-electrolyte interface.

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