Electrical Properties Enhancement Of Poly(Methyl Methacrylate) For Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) have gained considerable attention in the field of solar energy due to their simplicity of fabrication and good efficiency. A DSSCs are consisted of transparent electrodes semiconductors, electrolyte solution and dye. Normally, the transparent electrodes are made from the fluorine-doped tin oxide glass (FTO-glass), but this glass type has drawback in terms of high brittleness, heavy weight and high cost. Thus, this research proposed the use of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) for replacing the FTO glass since it had excellent optical transparency, low cost and light weight. However, it is classified as non-conductive polymer. Therefore, the enhancement of electrical conductivity of PMMA sheet was required before applying in DSSC via spin coating of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) onto PMMA substrate at a spinning rate of 300 rpm for 30 s. It was found that the electrical resistance of PMMA sheet was reduced from 1014 Ω/cm2 to 30.65 Ω/cm2. In addition, PEDOT had potential to be the catalyst for redox reaction of electrolyte. When the zinc oxide (ZnO) layer was inserted between PMMA sheet and PEDOT (PEDOT/ZnO/PMMA sheet), it was observed that the DSSC consisting of PEDOT/ZnO/PMMA sheet provided the higher energy conversion efficiency as 150% than that of PEDOT/PMMA.