Preparation of anatase TiO2 nanoparticles using low hydrothermal temperature for dye-sensitized solar cell

One device being developed as an alternative source of renewable energy by utilizing solar energy source is dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). This device works using simple photosynthetic-electrochemical principle in the molecular level. In this device, the inorganic oxide semiconductor of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has a great potential for the absorption of the photon energy from the solar energy source, especially in the form of TiO₂ nanoparticle structure. This nanoparticle structure is expected to improve the performance of DSSC because the surface area to weight ratio of this nanostructures is very large. In this study, the synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticle from its precursors has been performed along with the fabrication of the DSSC device. Effort to improve the size of nanocrystalline anatase TiO₂ was accomplished by low hydrothermal treatment at various temperatures whereas the crystallinity of the anatase phase in the structure was performed by calcination process. Characterization of the materials was performed using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), while the DSSC performance was examined through a high precision current versus voltage (I-V) curve analyzer. The results showed that pure anatase TiO₂ nanoparticles could be obtained at low hydrothermal of 100, 125, and 150 °C followed by calcination at 450 °C. The best performance of photocurrent-voltage characteristic was given by TiO₂ hydrothermally synthesized at 150 °C with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.40 %, whereas the standard TiO₂ nanoparticles has PCE only 4.02 %. This result is very promising in terms low temperature and thus low cost of anatase TiO₂ semiconductor preparation for DSSC application.