Layered Double Hydroxides as an Effective Additive in Polymer Gelled Electrolyte based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

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• 作者：Hsu-Wen Ho ; Wei-Yun Cheng ; Yu-Chun Lo ; Tzu-Chien Wei ; Shih-Yuan Lu
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：October 22, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：6
• 期：20
• 页码：17518-17525
• 全文大小：430K
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

Layered double hydroxides (LDH), a class of anionic clay materials, were developed as an effective additive for polymer gelled electrolytes for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). Carbonate and chloride intercalated Zn-Al LDHs, ZnAl-CO₃ LDH, and ZnAl-Cl LDH were prepared with coprecipitation methods. The addition of the two LDHs significantly improved, in terms of power conversion efficiency (PCE), over the plain poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) gelled electrolyte and competed favorably with the liquid electrolyte based DSSCs, 8.13% for the liquid electrolyte, 7.48% for the plain PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte, 8.11% for the ZnAl-CO₃ LDH/PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte, and 8.00% for the ZnAl-Cl LDH/PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte based DSSCs. The good performance in PCEs achieved by the LDH-loaded DSSCs came mainly from the significant boost in open circuit voltages (V_oc), from 0.74 V for both the liquid electrolyte and PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte based DSSCs to 0.79 V for both the ZnAl-CO₃ LDH/PVDF-HFP and ZnAl-Cl LDH/PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte based DSSCs. The boost in V_oc was contributed mainly by the positive shift in redox potential of the redox couple, I鈥?/sup>/I₃鈥?/sup>, as revealed from cyclic voltammetry analyses. As for the long-term stability, PCE retention rates of 96 and 99% after 504 h were achieved by the ZnAl-CO₃ LDH/PVDF-HFP and ZnAl-Cl LDH/PVDF-HFP gelled electrolyte based DSSCs, respectively, appreciably better than 92% achieved by the liquid electrolyte based one after 480 h.

Keywords:

layered double hydroxide; dye-sensitized solar cell; polymer gelled electrolytes; electrolyte additive