Promotional effect of silver nanoparticles on the performance of N-doped TiO2 photoanode-based dye-sensitized solar cells

• Main Authors: Lim, Su Pei, Pandikumar, Alagarsamy, Huang, Nay Ming, Lim, Hong Ngee, Gu, Guochen, Ma, Ting Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Royal Society of Chemistry 2014
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35084/1/35084.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/35084/; http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/RA/c4ra09775k#!divAbstract

We report the first successful application of an N-TiO2–Ag nanocomposite as an efficient photoanode for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). The N-TiO2–Ag nanocomposites with different Ag contents were prepared using a simple chemical reduction method and characterized using various suitable techniques. The DSSC assembled with the N-TiO2–Ag-modified photoanode demonstrated an enhanced solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency of 8.15% compared to the photoanode of a DSSC composed of unmodified TiO2 (2.19%) under full sunlight illumination (100 mW cm−2, AM 1.5 G). This superior DSSC performance was due to the reduced band gap energy and retarded charge recombination that resulted from the introduction of plasmonic Ag nanoparticles on the surface of N-TiO2. The influence of the Ag content on the overall efficiency was also investigated, and the optimum Ag content for N-TiO2 was found to be 10 wt%. The enhanced solar energy conversion efficiency demonstrated by the N-TiO2–Ag nanocomposite makes it a promising alternative to conventional photoanode-based DSSCs.