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Dye-sensitised Solar Cells

Dye-sensitised cells involve novel materials and design. The diagram above shows how the dye sensitized cell works. The active absorber is a monolayer of ruthenium based dye adsorbed onto a film comprising grains of TiO2. Electrons travel through this film to the SnO2 coated glass collecting contact. The dye is regenerated by I3- ions which transfer their charge to I- ions that are reduced back to triiodide at the Pt coated glass counter electrode, completing the circuit.

We have created a Monte Carlo code to look at the influence of the grain morphology (eg the presence of necks) on transient currents using a fine and coarse scale simulation and compared our results with solutions from a continuum model. Our Monte Carlo code uses a novel two timescale approach that allows us to integrate microscopic (intragrain) with mesoscopic (inter-grain) charge transport processes. This method is illustrated below.

A wide range of experimental measurements made in Chemistry is being used to test the theoretical models.

References

  1. B O'Regan and M Grätzel "A low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitised colloidal TiO2 films" Nature 353 737-40 (1991)
  2. M Grätzel "Photoelectrochemical Cells" Nature 414 338-44 (2001)
  3. L M Peter and D Vanmaekelbergh "Time and Frequency Resolved Studies of Photoelectrochemical kinetics" Advances in Chemical Science and Engineering 6 77 Eds R C Alkire and D M Kolb (Wiley VCH)
  4. A Kambili, A B Walker, F L Qiu,  A C Fisher, A D Savin and L M Peter "Electron Transport in the dye sensitized nanocrystalline cell" Physica E 14 203-9 (2002)
  5. M J Cass, F L Qiu, A B Walker, A C Fisher, L M Peter "Influence of Grain Morphology on Electron Transport in Dye Sensitized Nanocrystalline Solar Cells" J Phys Chem B 106 113-9 (2003) 
  6. F L Qiu, A C Fisher, A B Walker and L M Peter "The distribution of photoinjected electrons in a dye-sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 solar cell modelled by a boundary element method" Electrochemistry Communications 5 711-6 (2003) 
  7. M J Cass, A B Walker, D Martinez and L M Peter "Grain morphology and trapping effects on electron transport in dye sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells" J Phys Chem B 109 5100-7 (2005)
  8. A B Walker, L M Peter, M J Cass, D Martinez, P J Cameron “Multi-timescale Monte Carlo method for simulating electron transport in dye sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells” Invited Highlight Article J Materials Chemistry 15 2253-6 (2005)
  9. A B Walker, L M Peter, K P K Lobato,P J Cameron "Analysis of photovoltage decay transients in dye-sensitized solar cells"J Phys Chem B 110 25504-7 (2006)
  10. L M Peter, A B Walker, G Boschloo, A Hagfeldt "Interpretation of apparent activation energies for electron transport in dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells" J Phys Chem B 110 13694-9 (2006)
  11. A B Walker, L M Peter, D Martinez, K P K Lobato "Transient photocurrents in dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells" Chimia 61 792-5 (2007)
  12. J R Jennings, A Ghicov, L M Peter, P Schmukl, A B Walker "Dye-sensitized solar cells based on oriented TiO2 nanotube arrays: Transport, trapping, and transfer of electrons" J of the American Chemical Society 130 13364-72 (2008)
Updated 30 Jan 2009