Cost effective facile synthesis of TiO2 nanograins for flexible DSSC application using rose bengal dye

Synthesis of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanograins using economical successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method has been carried out. TiO2 thin films are studied for their structural, compositional, optical and morphological properties. A layer by layer process leads to the formation of 2.4 μm thick nanocrystalline TiO2 film. The heat treated TiO2 thin films are hydrophilic in nature with contact angle of 67°. The interconnected nanograins are employed for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) using inexpensive Rose Bengal (RB) dye. RB dye sensitization resulted into shifting of absorption peak from UV to visible region. The photoresponce of the dye sensitized solar cell is evaluated in the polyiodide electrolyte (0.1 M KI + 0.01 M I2) at 40 mWcm−2 illumination intensity. The TiO2 nanograins accompanied with RB sensitizer showed the conversion efficiency (η) of 0.89%. These results depict the strong assurance of TiO2 nanograins for DSSC application