Improvement in Photovoltaic Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Using Activated Carbon-TiO₂ Composites-Based Photoanode

In this study, the activated carbon (AC) is synthesized from the oil fly ash (FA). Noncarbonaceous impurities were eliminated by acidic treatment of oil FA. Brunauer-Emmett-Teller and scanning electron microscopy energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analyses are used to characterize the AC. The AC is then mixed with TiO₂ in different concentrations to form hybrid photoanodes for dye sensitized solar cells. The dispersion of AC in TiO₂ is confirmed by transmission electron microscopy analysis. Solar cells are fabricated by employing the composite films as the working electrode. The UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy, photocurrent-voltage characteristic and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analyses are carried out to examine the performance of solar cells. The results indicate that the concentration of AC in photoanode strongly affects the efficiency of solar cells. The solar cell fabricated with 0.05% AC-TiO₂ photoanode, shows the highest efficiency of 5.45%, which is 61% greater than unmodified photoanode (3.38%). Density functional theory quantum modeling technique is used to compute the band gap of TiO₂ and C-TiO₂ clusters.