Synthesis of novel SnO2@TiO2 nanofibers as an efficient photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cells

• SnO2-incorporated TiO2 nanofibers are synthesized using electrospinning.
• The nanofibers reveal distinct performance as a photoanode in DSC.
• The dye loading, IPCE and electron life time were enhanced by incorporation of SnO2 at low content.
• SnO2 content @ TiO2 NFs should be optimized; 10% is the best.

Dye-sensitized Solar Cells (DSCs) have attracted much attention because they directly convert solar light into electrical power without any negative environmental effect. Experimentally, this work introduces a novel working electrode to enhance the light harvesting and photovoltaic performance of solar cell. The novel electrode composed of one-dimensional SnO2@TiO2 nanofibers which were synthesized by a facile and one-step technique of electrospinning. The prepared material was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV–Visible spectrophotometric techniques. XRD revealed that the synthesized TiO2 nanofibers exhibit Anatase phase. SnO2@TiO2 nanofibers are employed as photoanode of DSCs. The results obtained have indicated that the presence of tin enhances the amount of dye adsorption which leads to high migration of electrons from the photosensitizer to the conduction band of the collection electrode. Accordingly, the novel photoanode was found to improve the short circuit current density from 3.02 mA/cm2 for pristine TiO2 nanofibers to 6.10 mA/cm2 as well as increasing the open circuit voltage from 815.0 mV to 828.5 mV at suitable concentration of SnO2, which was found in this study to be 10%. Moreover, remarkably improved photovoltaic efficiency of 3.41% was achieved in case of utilizing SnO2-incorporated TiO2 nanofibers as photoanode based DSCs which is higher than that of the conversion performance in case of pristine TiO2 nanofibers (i.e. 1.61%).