Controllable Synthesis And Photoelectrochemical Properties Of Tin Oxide Dioxide Photoanode Nanomaterials

In rencent years, the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) has been attract extensive attention, and has certain application prospects compared to the expensive solid-state solar cells. The photoanode plays a vital role in the performance of the DSSCs, responsibling for the dye aborption and electron transport. This paper mainly designed and ynthesised a series of anatase SnO2photoanode materials and TiO2materials to improve the efficience, such as SnO2nanochains@hollow spheres, SnO2nanosheets and TiO2nanorods, and discuss how the morphology impact the efficience.SnO2nanochains were successfully encapsulated inside hollow spheres with variable nanochain length by taking mesoporous silica microsphere (MS) as template. After loading SnO2nanochains within the MS mesopores, a hydrothermal method was employed to coat a polycrystalline SnO2layer on the surface of SnO2-loaded MS to form the special core/shell heterostructure. After removing the silica core, nanochain-encapsulated SnO2hollow spheres would be obtained. By tuning the structure and chain length of SnO2loaded within MS mesopores, the filling degree of SnO2nanochain inside the hollow spheres could be tuned. When applied as the scattering layer in DSSCs, the photocurrent of the cell increased remarkably with nanochain length due to the multiple light reflecting and scattering occurred in the hierarchical structures. The results indicated a32.2%improvement in comparison with that derived from TiO2nanorod arrays.SnO2nanosheets were synthesized using Cd(OH)2nanosheets as the template and accompanying by the dissolving of Cd(OH)2, the well-defined hexagonal SnO2hollow nanosheets can be obtained.. And we successfully control the structure of the SnO2nanosheets by tuning the concentration of the precursor. We make the hesagonal SnO2hollow nanosheets as the scattering layer on the DSSCs. The photovoltaic measurements indicatethat SnO2layer enhances the dye loading capacity, the electron transfer efficiency, and the photocurrent of the cell, contributing to the significant improvement of the energy conversion efficiency.TiO22nanowire arrays weresuccessfully prepared by a low-temperature hydrothermal method. DSSCs employing the TiO2nanowire arrays as electrode achieve a very high photocurrent.