Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2013 May 22;5(10):4155-61. doi: 10.1021/am4001858. Epub 2013 May 9.
Hole-conducting silica/polymer nanocomposites exhibit interesting physical and chemical properties with important applications in the field of energy storage and hybrid solar cells. Although the conventional strategy of grafting hole-conducting polymer onto the surface of silica nanoparticles is to use in situ oxidative polymerization, a promising alternative of using surface-initiated controlled living radical polymerization has arisen to anchor the polymer on the silica. The resulting silica/polymer nanocomposites from the latter method are more chemically and thermally stable because of the strong covalent bonding compared to the electrostatic interaction from in situ polymerization. The use of these nanocomposites mixed with spiro-MeOTAD (2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene) as a new hole conductor in the application of solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell (ss-DSSC) is reported here. The power conversion efficiency of this ss-DSSC is higher than the full spiro-MeOTAD ss-DSSC. Notably, the short circuit current improves by 26%. It is explained by large size silica/polymer nanocomposites forming an additional light scattering layer on the top of photoanode. This is the first time a conductive light scattering layer is introduced into ss-DSSC to enhance cell performance.
具有导孔的硅石/聚合物纳米复合材料具有有趣的物理和化学特性，在储能和混合太阳能电池领域有重要的应用。虽然将导孔聚合物接枝到硅石纳米颗粒表面的常规策略是使用原位氧化聚合，但一种有前途的替代方法是使用表面引发可控活性自由基聚合将聚合物固定在硅石上。与原位聚合的静电相互作用相比，后者方法得到的聚合物/硅石纳米复合材料由于强共价键而具有更好的化学和热稳定性。本文报道了将这些纳米复合材料与 spiro-MeOTAD（2,2',7,7'-四（N,N-二对甲氧基苯基）胺）-9,9'-螺二芴）混合用作固态染料敏化太阳能电池（ss-DSSC）中的新型导孔材料。该 ss-DSSC 的功率转换效率高于全 spiro-MeOTAD ss-DSSC。值得注意的是，短路电流提高了 26%。这可以解释为大尺寸的硅石/聚合物纳米复合材料在光电阳极的顶部形成了额外的光散射层。这是首次在 ss-DSSC 中引入导电光散射层以提高电池性能。
