Electrochemical analysis of dye adsorption on aligned carbon nanofiber arrays coated with TiO₂ nanoneedles for dye-sensitized solar cell

Abstract

An electrochemical method has been developed to analyze dye absorption on the aligned carbon nanofiber arrays coated with TiO₂ nanoneedles for dye-sensitized solar cell. The unique nanostructure with the roughness factor of 90.6 provides a large effective surface area for dye adsorption. The experimental results showed that the dye molecules cover 39.7% of the TiO₂ surface area which influences the performance of dye-sensitized solar cell. The electrochemical method provides the information of the coverage of dye molecules which is a key issue to optimize solar cell performance.

Keywords

electrochemical analysis / aligned carbon nanofibers / dye adsorption / solar cell

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Acknowledgments

Jun Li thanks Kansas State University for financial support. This work was also partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. EPS-0903806, and matching support from the State of Kansas through Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg