Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV16)
Publication date: 28th March 2016
The photoanode of a dye-sensitized solar cells is most commonly built from 20 nm spherical particles. While the nanoparticles offer a high surface area for dye adsorption they suffer from hindered electron transport due to trapping within the particles. This work studies the preparation of photoanode structures which create continuous pathways for electron transport. A hollow weblike titania structure was prepared by coating a porous cellulose acetate template using atomic layer deposition. Atomic layer deposition allows a conformal coating of the template with a nanometer scale precision over the coating thickness. The biotemplate could be removed from the structure by calcination leaving the structure hollow which increases the active surface area of the structure. Here we present the performance of these titania web photoanodes in dye-sensitized solar cells. The use of the titania webs is not limited only to solar cell applications. The applicability of the titania webs to solar water splitting is under study by our group.