[20p-P7-1~20] 9.2 Nanowires and Nanoparticles

▲ [20p-P7-18] Synthesis and evaluation of Triethylamine-capped SnO₂ nanostructures for dye sensitized solar cell applications.

〇Tarini Murugesan¹, Navaneethan Mani¹, Archana Jayaram¹, Yasuhiro Hayakawa¹ (1.RIE Shizuoka Univ)

Keywords:SnO nanostructures,triethylamine-capped,dye sensitized solar cell

Solar energy is abundant and the need for alternative energy is increasing day by day. Use of renewable energy is required for the future generation. Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) are third generation solar cells found in 1991 by Gratzel et al using TiO₂ nanoparticles as a photoanode material. Advantages of DSSC over silicon based solar cell is the low manufacturing cost, ecofriendly, easy tunable photoanode material, sensitizers and electrolyte.SnO₂ has stable tetragonal rutile crystal structure. Although SnO₂ (bandgap of 3.6 eV) has similar wide band gap with superior carrier mobility than TiO₂ and ZnO, few factors have to overcome for better performance in DSSC. Major drawback is that SnO₂ nanoparticles have high recombination rate thus reduces the efficiency. Novel morphologies and composite nanostructure are considered for increasing the efficiency of the device. In this work, we synthesize (triethylamine) TEA-capped SnO₂ nanostrucutures by solvothermal method and proved that SnO₂ is a better alternative as photoanode material in DSSC application. Synthesized tin oxide materials were characterized by XRD, SEM, Raman, FTIR and XPS analysis. XRD peaks matched with the JCPDS No. 77-0449 and Raman spectrum showed a unique peak compared to bulk SnO₂ which showed the presence of nanoparticles. SEM results showed that SnO₂ synthesized comprised of microspheres and nanoparticles. FTIR results showed whether the functional group present in the TEA-capped SnO₂. XPS studies showed the elemental composition of Sn³⁺ and O^1s states present in the synthesized photoanode material. The DSSC was prepared by using FTO/ Synthesized SnO₂ deposited by spray coating/ Dye (mostly N719 or D205 based dyes) / Electrolyte (I^-/I^3-) / Pt: FTO (counter electrode). To find the efficiency of the uncapped and TEA-capped SnO₂ based DSSC, I-V measurements were done and compared.