Abstract
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•The effect of insertion of carbonaceous materials in TiO2 on the photovoltaic performance of DSSC is investigated.•Nanocomposite photoanodes are prepared by addition of carbonaceous materials to TiO2 nanoparticulate paste.•The results indicate that the PCE of DSSCs is dependent on the type of carbonaceous material.•The PCE of Graphene- TiO2 based device is 14% greater than MWCNTs- TiO2 based DSSC.
In this work, nanocomposites of carbon allotropes with TiO2 have been used as photoanodes to improve the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Multi-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene materials have been mixed with TiO2 paste to form nanocomposites. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) has been used to confirm the dispersion of MWCNTs and graphene materials in TiO2. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopic, current-voltage characteristics and incident photon-to-current efficiency have been carried to characterize DSSCs. Results demonstrate that nanocomposite photoanodes enhance the power-conversion-efficiency of DSSCs. However, results also show that graphene/TiO2 based DSSC exhibits PCE of 5.25%, which is about 14% higher than MWCNTs/TiO2 based solar cell (4.20%).