[en] Highlights: • TiO₂ nanorods/nanoparticles were successfully made via hydrothermal method. • High conversion efficiency of 7.7% is achieved with nanorods/nanoparticles. • Lower charge transfer resistance and longer lifetime has been found. Titanium dioxide is a promising wide band gap semiconducting material for dye-sensitized solar cell. The poor electron transport properties still remain a challenge with conventional nanoparticles. Here, we synthesized TiO₂ nanorods/nanoparticles by hydrothermal method to improve the charge transport properties. The structural and morphological information of the prepared nanorods/nanoparticles was analysed with X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy analysis, respectively. A high power conversion efficiency of 7.7% is achieved with nanorods/nanoparticles employed device under 100 mW/cm². From the electrochemical impedance analysis, superior electron transport properties have been found for synthesized TiO₂ nanorods/nanoparticles employed device than commercial P25 nanoparticles based device.