Commercialization potential of dye-sensitized mesoscopic solar cells

The price of oil has continued to rise, from a high of US$100 per barrel at the beginning 2008 to a new record of above US$140 in the recent weeks (of July). Coupled with increasing insidious greenhouse gas emissions, the need to harness abundant and renewable energy sources is never more urgent than now. The sun is the champion of all energy sources and photovoltaic cell production is currently the world's fastest growing energy market. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are photoelectrochemical cells which mimic the natural photosynthesis process to generate solar electricity. Typically, a monolayer of dye sensitizer molecules is anchored onto a semiconductor mesoporous film such as TiO₂ to generate charges on exposure to illumination. The nanocrystalline particulate threedimensional network provides high surface area coverage for the photogeneration process and percolation of charges. In the thesis, we will review the current research efforts to optimize the DSC performance and develop probable applications to complement existing solid-state photovoltaic technologies. We believe the large and rapidly expanding solar market offers a prime commercial opportunity to deliver a DSC product for mass adoption by consumers. DSC is kept at a low production cost because it bypasses conventional vacuum-based semiconductor processing technologies, instead relying on solution and chemical processing routes. However, our cost modeling analysis show the TCO glass substrate and ruthenium dyes could constitute more than 90% of the overall materials cost.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Tan, Kwan Wee

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yet-Ming Chiang and Chee Cheong Wong.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54206

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/54206