Fast and controllable sensitization of dye-sensitized solar cells by microwave irradiation

The unique features of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) with low-cost, easy-assembly, and nature-friendly benefits make them suitable for renewable energy. However, the adsorption of dye on porous TiO2 surface, usually conducted by a long time immersion (16-24 h) to offer an optimized dye adsorption condition, is a time-consuming process, which inevitably limits their potential in production capacity and throughput. Accordingly, developing a simple route to reduce the dye adsorption process is urgently required. Herein, we present a facile, rapid, efficient sensitization route for efficiently controlling the adsorption of N719 dye on TiO2 via microwave irradiation for the first time in this work. The dye adsorption condition on TiO2 can be easily tuned with the number of microwave times and the microwave duration via the microwave-induced thermal effect. Our result reveals that the conversion efficiency of DSCs after the microwave treatment in a short time can be significantly increased, leading to 43% improvement in the conversion efficiency as compared with that without microwave treatment.