Low-Dose Imidazolium Cation Grafted Polymeric Nanotubes for Quasi-solid-state Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

•Polymeric nanotubes were synthesized and used as gelators in DSSCs.•The polymeric nanotube as low as 1 wt% dose could form the IL gel electrolyte.•The gel electrolytes exhibit an efficiency of 4.9%.•The gel electrolytes show good long-term stability.

Poly(divinybenzene-co-chloromethylstyrene) (poly(DVB-co-VBC)) nanotubes (PDVBVBC-NT) and imidazolium surface functionalized poly(DVB-co-VBC) (Im-PDVBVBC-NT) are synthesized by cationic polymerization and utilized as the gelators for ionic liquid based gel electrolytes. Compared with the synthesized pristine PDVBVBC-NT, Im-PDVBVBC-NT (a gelator dose as low as 1 wt%) based gel electrolytes show higher ionic conductivity and diffusion coefficient. The fabricated DSSCs based on Im-PDVBVBC-NT gel electrolyte show a power conversion efficiency of 4.9% and 5.5% under a simulated air mass 1.5 solar spectrum illumination at 100 mW cm−2 and 50 mW cm−2, respectively. Furthermore, Im-PDVBVBC-NT based DSSCs show better long-term stability than that with ionic liquid electrolyte, which indicated that Im-PDVBVBC-NT based gel electrolytes could overcome the leakage problems of the cells with pure ionic liquid electrolytes.

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