Boosting Efficiencies of Gel Polymer Electrolyte Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Using Mixed Cations

Of the emerging low cost solar cells, dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are most promising as they can be easily fabricated and proven to be efficient and reasonably stable. However, the maximum efficiency reported for such cells is only around 14% which has been achieved employing a liquid based electrolyte. In an attempt to improve the stability and solve the leakage problems associated with liquid electrolytes, gel polymer electrolytes are being tried by many workers and the efficiencies of such cells are on the rise and have reached values around 9-10% at present. Research efforts are underway worldwide to find ways and means of increasing the efficiency of polymer based DSSCs through various techniques including interfacial engineering. In this short review, a method to improve the performance of the polymer gel based DSSCs by employing a binary mixture of iodide salts having smaller and larger cations is described and illustrated with some examples.