A quasi-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell based on porous polymer electrolyte membrane

Water was employed as plasticizer to produce porous polymer membrane. The gel polymer electrolyte containing 72% liquid organic electrolyte (0.5 M LiI, 0.05 M I2, 0.5 M 4-tert-butylpyridine in PC) shows ionic conductivity of 6.4 × 10−4 S cm−1 due to its high porous structure. Moreover, the porous electrolyte membrane shows good mechanical strength and serves as a separator in the solar cells. Quasi-solid-state solar cells fabricated with this gel electrolyte displayed energy conversion efficiency of 6.0% when the cell gap was tuned to 30 μm. Moreover, these cells possessed much better long-term stability compared with those based on liquid organic electrolyte.