Enhanced charge transfer of liquid and gel electrolytes using nano platinum in dye-sensitized solar cells

One of the key components of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is electrolyte that strongly affects its stability and overall conversion efficiency. In order to improve charge transfer of the electrolyte, lab-made platinum nanoparticles (nano Pt) were employed in this present work as catalysts in both conventional and flexible DSSC. The presence of nano Pt in a commercial electrolyte (R50, Solaronix) was found to significantly improve the photovoltaic performance of the resulting DSSC at AM 1.5: V_OC of 0.74 V, J_SC of 19.7 mA/cm², FF of 43.2% and η of 6.33 %, which were much better than those of a corresponding DSSC fabricated with the R50 electrolyte alone (η of 5.0%). Addition of nano Pt as catalysts for charge transfer in gel electrolyte was also found to substantially enhance the efficiency of the derived flexible-DSSC at AM 1.5: V_OC of 0.69 V, J_SC of 5.22 mA/cm², FF of 51.0% and η of 1.84 %, compared with η of 1.20 % in the case of using the gel electrolyte without nano Pt. The effect of anti-electron-hole-recombination layer on the overall conversion efficiency of the obtained DSSC was also studied and discussed.