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The effect of photoanode thickness on the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells containing TiO2 nanosheets with exposed reactive {001} facets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2012

Xia Wu ,
Gaoqing Lu  and
Lianzhou Wang
Xia Wu
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
Gaoqing Lu
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
Lianzhou Wang*
Affiliation:
ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials, School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: l.wang@uq.edu.au
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Abstract

Nanosized anatase TiO2 nanosheets with highly exposed reactive {001} facets (∼80%) were prepared via hydrothermal reaction with the addition of hydrofluoric acid and characterized by various techniques including transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller. High-quality TiO2 nanosheets films with different thicknesses (∼5–20 μm) were fabricated by doctor blading, and the effect of film thickness on the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was investigated by I-V characterization and dark current potential scan. The results show that each parameter of DSSCs performance depends strongly on the thickness of the TiO2 nanosheets films. An optimized DSSCs performance of 8.39% was obtained by the TiO2nanosheets film with a thickness of ∼15 μm.

Keywords

TiO2reactive facetsdye-sensitized solar cells
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 28 , Issue 3: Focus Issue: Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterials , 14 February 2013 , pp. 475 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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