A Simple Approach on Synthesis of TiO2 Nanoparticles and its Application in dye Sensitized Solar Cells

This paper presents a simple, low cost method of synthesizing TiO2 nanoparticles by sol-gel method, where titanium isopropoxide is used as a starting material. Further, same TiO2 is used to sensitize 2-cyano-3- (4-(7-(5-(4- (diphenylamino) phenyl)-4- octylthiophen-2-yl) benzo[c] [1, 2, 5] thiadiazol-4- yl)phenyl) acrylic acid (RK-1 dye) and Di-tetrabutylammonium cis-bis (isothiocyanato) bis (2,2’-bipyridyl4,4’-dicarboxylato) ruthenium(II) (N-719 dye) for light harvesting applications. Anatase structure and average particle size of 7.3 nm were confirmed from XRD pattern. From SEM, it was noticed that particles were of varying size and shape and aggregation with clear porosity. FTIR spectra reveal Ti-O bond corresponding to 483 cm – 1 and from UV-Vis absorption, energy band gap was found to be 3.2 eV. Photocurrent density (J) - photovoltage (V) characteristic of DSSC of different thicknesses of TiO2 were obtained, it was observed that optimum solar energy to electricity conversion efficiency (η) for RK-1 dye and N- 719 dye 4.08 % and 5.12 % with TiO2 thickness of 5.4 μm and 8.6 μm respectively under AM 1.5 irradiation (1000 W/m2) conditions