Improvement of dye-sensitized solar cell performance through infiltration of TiO2 nanoparticles between mesoporous TiO2 particles

• Spherical mesoporous TiO2 materials were obtained by a simple sol–gel method.
• Physical mixture of TiO2 nanoparticle and mesoporous TiO2 was utilized for solar cell electrode.
• Mixed electrode system exhibited higher DSSC performance.

There are two factors on the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC): one is the amount of dye adsorbed, and the other is contact resistance. In this study, TiO2 nanoparticles (nano-TiO2, about 20 nm particle size) were infiltrated between mesoporous TiO2 (meso-TiO2) particles with about 300 nm particle sizes, in order to reduce the contact resistance of TiO2 electrodes. The infiltrated nano-TiO2 can facilitate electron transfer between meso-TiO2 particles by filling the empty volume of DSSC electrodes. As a result, the TiO2 electrode containing 65 wt% of meso-TiO2 and 35 wt% of nano-TiO2 exhibited the highest performance of DSSC.

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