Abstracts Book - IMRC 2018

• SC4-P072
TOWARD AQUEOUS BASED DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS
Alfredo Romero Contreras 1 , Julio Villanueva 1
1 Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Instituto de Física, Mexico.
A new cheap and easy way to get energy the sun is through a photovoltaic cell,
called Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). These cells are made with an electrode
(a semiconductor oxide thin layer sensitized to visible light with a monolayer of
Ruthenium dye supported by an FTO-Glass), an electrolyte and a counterelectrode
(a platinum deposition over FTO-Glass). Researches have been
focused on the improvement of efficiency, trying to apply new and
environmentally-friendly materials. One example is the substitution of organic
solvents, present in the electrolyte, by water. The first study about water in
DSSCs was made by S. Lindquist et. al. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 55 (1998) 267 , they
noticed efficiency decreased when the water concentration in the electrolyte
increased. Brian O’Reagan et. al. Adv. Mater. 2010, 22, 4505–4509 performed a similar
experiment employing a hydrophobic dye and water vol. 0 to 100% related to
the electrolyte amount (3-methoxypropionitrile used as solvent) showing slightly
Energy Environ. Sci., 2012, 5, 9492–
change on cell efficiencies. By another side, Frank et. al.
9495
performed experiments with 0 and 10 % of water and a Z907 dye using
acetonitrile and valeronitrile as solvents. In this case, they noticed that the
DSSCs efficiency was improved 7% to 7.5 % for samples with water. Now, there
is not a quantitatively study elucidating the electrodynamic contribution in
DSSCs when water is introduced on the electrolyte. In this work, we
quantitatively study the effect of water on the performance of DSSCs through
conventional optical and electronical characterization techniques for DSSCs with
a hydrophobic dye (Z907) and an electrolyte (iodine/triiodide with acetonitrile
and valeronitrile as solvents) with 0 and 10 % of water content. This work
highlights how the solvent plays an important role on the kinetics of device.
Acknowledgment:
The work was supported by VIEP-BUAP, CONACyT and IFUAP, Mexico.
Keywords: Aqueous-DSSCs, electrodynamic, electrolyte
Presenting authors email: aromero@ifuap.buap.mx