The present review article reports on the recent developments on the determination and analysis of the electrochemical and photoelectrochemical properties of p‐type semiconducting materials, namely nickel oxide (NiO), prepared with different modalities of deposition and thermal treatment. All these electrodic materials possess a mesoporous morphology as required by the specific application of the dye‐sensitized solar cell (DSC), or Grätzel’s cell. In particular, NiO thin film electrodes prepared with the methods of screen‐printing, spray deposition and sintering under various thermal conditions have been reviewed for the elevated reproducibility of their photoelectrochemical behavior, and the possibility offered by these methods of being scalable. The performance of these electrodes as photoactive cathodes of p‐DSCs has been compared with the performance of the NiO samples obtained via other methods of sysnthesis/deposition. The choice of the dye sensitizers for p‐ DSCs has been confined to those colorants that have been purposely designed for p‐type semiconductors, i.e. erythrosine b as benchmark, P1 and perylenemonoimides as highly performing hole photoinjectors, fast green and squaraines. The latter class of dyes is particularly useful for the envisage of tandem DSCs due to their red shifted main absorption with respect to traditional organometallic dye‐sensitizers (characteristic of optical complementarity). The recent review of Daeneke et al. (ref. 53 in the following) analyzed systematically all the factors influencing negatively the poor performances of p‐DSCs. They reached the important conclusion that the energy conversion losses of p‐DSCs were mainly associated to the low fill factors expressed by the JV curves of these photoelectrochemical cells. The content of this review differs from that of the work of Daeneke et al. since it will be here shown that the photoelectrochemical performances of nanostructured NiO films are heavily determined by the capacitive behavior of NiO. This correlation has been evidenced by the fact that NiO acts as charge storing system in both forward and reverse bias with the retention of ionic charge either on the surface or within the open structure. Adsorption and/or intercalation phenomena in NiO will depend on the nature and size of the ions compensating the electronic charge injected in NiO either electrochemically or photoelectrochemically.
Nanostructured materials for p-type dye-sensitised solar cells (p-DSCs) and tandem devices / Dini, Danilo. - In: PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY COMMUNICATIONS. - ISSN 2409-191X. - ELETTRONICO. - 3:1(2016), pp. 14-51.
Nanostructured materials for p-type dye-sensitised solar cells (p-DSCs) and tandem devices
DINI, DANILO
2016
Abstract
The present review article reports on the recent developments on the determination and analysis of the electrochemical and photoelectrochemical properties of p‐type semiconducting materials, namely nickel oxide (NiO), prepared with different modalities of deposition and thermal treatment. All these electrodic materials possess a mesoporous morphology as required by the specific application of the dye‐sensitized solar cell (DSC), or Grätzel’s cell. In particular, NiO thin film electrodes prepared with the methods of screen‐printing, spray deposition and sintering under various thermal conditions have been reviewed for the elevated reproducibility of their photoelectrochemical behavior, and the possibility offered by these methods of being scalable. The performance of these electrodes as photoactive cathodes of p‐DSCs has been compared with the performance of the NiO samples obtained via other methods of sysnthesis/deposition. The choice of the dye sensitizers for p‐ DSCs has been confined to those colorants that have been purposely designed for p‐type semiconductors, i.e. erythrosine b as benchmark, P1 and perylenemonoimides as highly performing hole photoinjectors, fast green and squaraines. The latter class of dyes is particularly useful for the envisage of tandem DSCs due to their red shifted main absorption with respect to traditional organometallic dye‐sensitizers (characteristic of optical complementarity). The recent review of Daeneke et al. (ref. 53 in the following) analyzed systematically all the factors influencing negatively the poor performances of p‐DSCs. They reached the important conclusion that the energy conversion losses of p‐DSCs were mainly associated to the low fill factors expressed by the JV curves of these photoelectrochemical cells. The content of this review differs from that of the work of Daeneke et al. since it will be here shown that the photoelectrochemical performances of nanostructured NiO films are heavily determined by the capacitive behavior of NiO. This correlation has been evidenced by the fact that NiO acts as charge storing system in both forward and reverse bias with the retention of ionic charge either on the surface or within the open structure. Adsorption and/or intercalation phenomena in NiO will depend on the nature and size of the ions compensating the electronic charge injected in NiO either electrochemically or photoelectrochemically.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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