Dye sensitized solar cells on paper substrates

This article reports for the first time in the literature, a dye sensitized solar cells with 1.21% efficiency (Voc=0.56 V, Jsc=6.70 mA/cm2 and F.F.=0.33) on paper substrates. The current dye sensitized solar cell technology is based on fluorine doped SnO2 (FTO) coated glass substrates. The problem with the glass substrate is its rigidity and heavy weight. Making DSSCs on paper opens the door for both photovoltaic and paper industries. The potential of using mature paper making and coating technologies will greatly reduce the current PV cost. Paper substrate based DSSCs not only offer the advantages of flexibility, portability and lightweight but also provide the opportunities for easy implantation to textile. In this study, a low temperature process is developed to coat uniform nickel on paper substrate as the metal contact to replace the traditional expensive FTO. The Ni paper showed excellent conductivity of 8–10 Ω/□. It is found that the control of metal oxide electrode morphology is critical to solar cell performance. The TiO2 film has the tendency to crack on Ni coated paper, which resulted in the shunt of the device and no solar cell efficiency was obtained. ZnO film on the other hand had good morphology tolerance on Ni coated paper and yielded solar cell efficiency of 1.21% (Voc=0.56 V, Jsc=6.70 mA/cm2 and F.F.=0.33) under AM 1.5 (activation area is 0.16 cm2). The control sample of ZnO solar cell on FTO glasses has the efficiency of 2.66% (Voc=0.64 V, Jsc=9.97 mA/cm2 and F.F.=0.42).

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► Dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) on paper substrates with 1.21% efficiency is reported first time.
► Control of metal oxide morphology is crucial in successfully making DSSC on paper substrates.
► Conductive paper with excellent conductivity of 8–10 Ω/□ is achieved by Ni coating.