This document discusses enhancing the efficiency of dye solar cells through improving various components and fabrication methods. Dye solar cells are a low-cost thin film solar cell technology that was invented in 1991 and works by using photosensitized dyes to convert sunlight to electricity. The document describes the materials, construction, advantages, and experimental results for building and testing different dye solar cells.

1. Enhancement in the efficiency of
Solar Cells
Submitted By: Guided By:
Srinath Poduval 06BCH097 Prof. (Dr.) Jayesh P. Ruparelia
Swapnil Agarwal 06BCH098 Assistant Professor

2. Index
• Introduction
– Dye Solar Cells (DSC)
• Materials & Methods
• Results
• References

3. Introduction
Dye Solar Cells
• Low cost thin film solar cells
• Invented by Michael Grätzel in 1991
• Mechanically robust and can be made on
flexible sheets
• Commercialization just started with three
major companies: DyeSol, Austraila; Solaronix,
France; ECIC, Taiwan.

4. Construction & Working:

5. Advantages:
• Works well under diffused sunlight, less sensitive
to angle of incidence.
• Can be made fully transparent, can have a lot of
aesthetic applications.
• Bifacial, absorbs light from both faces, can be
inverted.
• Manufacturing costs much cheaper than the
commercially available PV silicon cells.
• Also works at high temperature, owing to the thin
conducting film that radiates internal heat.

6. Materials & Methods:
DSC’s four major components:
1. Conducting glass
2. TiO2 layer
3. Dye
4. Electrolyte
5. Counter electrode

7. Building of DSC:
Conducting glass:
• Commercially available as ITO (Indium Tin
oxide glass) used normally in LCD screens.
• Glass with a resistance of at least 30Ω/sq.cm is
required.
• Glass has to be highly transparent.
• A normal 160 * 80 mm ITO glass (4mm thick)
costs around $150 (Courtesy: Dyesol Inc.)

8. Lab preparation of conducting glass
•Stannic Chloride is obtained and dissolved in
ethanol(40% w/w) solution – (5 gm in 5ml of methanol)
•It is sprayed upon the glass surface with the help of a
mister.
•The glass is then kept in the muffle furnace and is
heated up to 400-500 ° C for about 15-20 min
•Sn4+ gets reduced to Sn2+, forming a mix layer of SnO2 &
SnO4, which are responsible for conductivity

9. Conducting glass by Thermal Evaporation @
IPR, Gandhinagar

10. Contd..
Thermal Evaporation facility @ FCPTI, IPR, Gandhinagar

11. Contd..

12. Contd..

13. Procedure to build a DSC
(Materials Required)
• 2 transparent conductive glass slides (We used glass slides prepared by
Thermal Evaporation technique).
• Sticky tape
• Ruler and a small knife.
• Isopropyl alcohol .
• Titanium dioxide (Company: Finar 99.0% pure)
• Mortar with pistil
• Acetic Acid
• Triton X-100 (Surfactant)
• Muffle furnace (at least 450°C)
• Potassium Iodide crystals
• Dye (we used Santalin)
• Spirit lamp
• Fire tongs
• Glass rod

14. Step by Step process:
• Check for conducting side
• Preparation of glass slide
• TiO2 Coating

15. Contd..
• Heating the coated glass
• Preparing the Dye Solution

16. Contd..
• Coating Dye over TiO2
• Preparation of Counter electrode

17. Contd..
• Measuring the open-circuit Voltage

18. Results
Conducting glass Analysis
• SEM Analysis

19. • XRD Analysis
Intensity/
cps
2 Theta/ (Scan axis: 2:1 sym.)
XRD pattern reveal that films contain SnO and SnO2 both phases with
SnO peaks with higher intesities and preferred orientaions.

20. Transmission Spectra
Transm ission Spectra for SnO2 film s deposited by therm al
evaporation and Plasm a assisted thermal evaporation
1 250 C
0.8
Transmittance
300 C
0.6
0.4 250 C with RF
0.2
300 C with RF
0
350 415 480 545 610 675 740 805 870 935 1000
Wavelength(nm )
Transmission spectra of films show that as the substrate
temperature increases transparency of the films increases. Also
spectra of plasma assisted films are lying somewhat above the
spectra of thermally grown
Films.

21. Open Circuit Voltage
S. No. Resistivity of Conducting Illumination Voltage(m
glass (W/m2) V)
1. 89.59 Ω cm 120 (Sun light) 989
2. 129.8 Ω cm 120 (Sun light) 692
3. 127 Ω cm 120 (Sun light) 468
4. 146 Ω cm 250 (Solar Lamp) 19

22. References
• D. Keefer, E. Eibergen, G. Lisensky, J. Tanaka and S. L. Suib, Surface conductive glass, J. Chem.
Educ. 61, 1104 (1984).
• Beomjin Yoo, Kyungkon Kim, Seung Hoon Lee, Won Mok Kim, Nam-Gyu Park, ITO/ATO/TiO2
triple-layered transparent conducting substrates for dye-sensitized solar cells, Solar Energy
Materials & Solar Cells 92 (2008).
• Supachai Ngamsinlapasathian, Thammanoon Sreethawong, Doubled layered ITO/SnO2
conducting glass for substrate of dye-sensitized solar cells, Solar Energy Materials & Solar
Cells 90 (2006).
• B. O’Regan, M. Gratzel, Nature 353, 737 (1991).
• B-S. Chiou, J-H. Tsai, J. Mater. Sci. Mater. Electron. 10, 491 (1999).
• B.D. Cullity, Elements of X-ray diffraction, Addison-Wesley Publication Company, Reading,
MA, 2-9 (1978).
• S. Kambe, K. Murakoshi, T. Kitamura, Y. Wada, S. Yanagida, H. Kominami, Y. Kera, Sol. Energy
Mater.Sol. Cells 61, 427 (2000).
• Haiying Wan, Dye Sensitized Solar Cells, The University of Alabama Publications, 1-13 (2006).
• Nazeeruddin, M. K.; Pechy , P.; Grätze, M, Chem. Community, 85 (1997).
• M.S. Roy, P. Balraju, G.D. Sharma, Dye-sensitized solar cell based on Rose Bengal dye and
nanocrystalline TiO2, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, 1-5 (2007).
• A.F. Nogueira, M.A. De Paoli, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 61 (2000).
• J.G. Chen, H.Y. Wei, K.C. Ho, Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells, 91 (2007).

23. Contd…
• Yongxiang Li, Dietrich Haarer, Winfried Scharath, Titanium dioxide films for photovoltaic cells
derived from a solgel process, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 56, 167-174 (1999) .
• K. Tennakone, G.R.R.A. Kumara, I.R.M. Kottegoda, Sensitization of nano-porous films of TiO2
with santalin (red sandalwood pigment) and construction of dye-sensitized solid-state
photovoltaic cells, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry 117, 137-142
(1998).
• K. Tennakone, G.R.R.A. Kumara, A.R. Kumarasinghe, K.G.U. Wijayantha, P.M. Sirimanna,
Semicondutor. Science. Technology 10, 1689 (1995).
• Michael Grätzel, Photovoltaic performance and long-term stability of dye-sensitized
meosocopic solar cells, C. R. Chimie 9, 578–583 (2006).
• Michael Grätzel, Dye Sensitized Solar Cells, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology,
2003
• Dr. Wolf Peter Stöckl, Research on the usability of low-cost materials in dye sensitized solar
cells, HTL Braunau am Inn
• http://www.dyesol.com/index.php
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dye_sentisized_solar_cell
• http://www.solarprint.ie
• http://www.ecic.com/dssc
• http://solarcellsinfo.com/blog/archives/category/dye-sensitized-polymer-organic-solar-cells