A novel composite electrolyte of titania nanotubes as fillers and polyethylene gycol for dye-sensitized solar cells

In this paper, a novel inorganic - organic composite electrolyte was prepared by using titania nanotube (TiNTs) as the filler in polyethylene glycol (PEG) for solid state dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The DSSCs fabricated with optimized composite electrolyte, containing 10 wt% TiNTs in PEG, showed much improved conversion efficiency of 4.5% in comparison with DSSC fabricated with PEG-only electrolyte and maintained for 30 days without a significant decreasing. Moreover, the surface morphologies, penetration, chemical interactions and crystalline properties of PEG and PEG-TiNTs composites and their performance to the DSSCs are studied extensively by FESEM, TEM, AFM, DSC and I-V measurements. The enhanced performance of resulting DSSCs is due to the presence of TiNTs as filler for improving the ionic conductivity and penetration of composite electrolyte into the TiO2 electrode.