Spray deposition of electrospun TiO2 nanorods for dye-sensitized solar cell

A simple technique was developed to fabricate a large-area TiO2 electrode layer using electrospun nanorods for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Using this technique, we assembled DSSCs of area ∼1 cm2 consisting of a thin TiO2 nanoparticle layer and a thick TiO2 nanorod layer as electrode. The TiO2 nanorods were obtained by mechanically grinding electrospun TiO2 nanofibers. A titania sol was first spin-coated on a conductive glass plate and a TiO2 nanorod layer was next spray dried on it to fabricate TiO2 nanoparticle/nanorod layers. These layers were subsequently sintered. The best-performing DSSC evaluated under AM1.5G (1 sun) condition gave current density ∼13.6 mA cm-2, open circuit voltage ∼0.8 V, fill factor ∼51% and energy conversion efficiency ∼5.8%