Preparations, Characterizations, and a Comparative Study on Photovoltaic Performance of Two Different Types of Graphene/TiO₂ Nanocomposites Photoelectrodes

This research work undertook a comparative study of the promoting effects of graphene in TiO 2 photoanodes. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of the types and concentration of reduced graphene oxides (rGO) on structure properties and the photovoltaic performance of TiO 2 based electrodes. Graphene oxide (GO) was prepared by using modified Hammer’s method. Next, GO was reduced by using two different approaches, which were the chemical reduction with vitamin C and thermal reduction. The latter approach was also carried out in situ during the fabrication and heat treatment processes of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). From the results, it was found that the photovoltaic performance of the DSSCs containing the GO/TiO 2 electrode, in which the GO phase experienced an in situ thermal reduction, was superior to those containing rGO/TiO 2 . It was also found that the power conversion efficiency of the DSSCs changed with the concentration of graphene in a nonlinear fashion. The optimum concentrations of graphene, corresponding to the highest PCE values of the GO/TiO 2 based DSSC (3.69%) and that of the rGO/TiO 2 based cell (2.90%), were 0.01 wt% and 0.03 wt%, respectively.

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