Performance Improvement of Paper Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Using H2/Ar-Treated n-Type Semiconducting Carbon-Nanotube Composite Paper

This paper presents paper-based dye-sensitized solar cells (paper DSSCs) fabricated using carbon nanotube (CNT) composite paper produced from mixtures of CNT and pulp dispersions. DSSC is composed of a dye-adsorbed semiconducting electrode, a counter electrode, and an electrolyte. In this study, our DSSC is constructed using n-type semiconducting CNT composite paper as the semiconducting electrode, metallic CNT composite paper as the counter electrode, and ordinary paper for keeping the electrolyte. In our previous study, potassium hydroxide was used to convert semiconducting CNT composite paper to n-type, but the performance was limited. Therefore, we aim to achieve a more stable and higher-performing paper DSSC by annealing the semiconducting CNT composite paper in a hydrogen–argon atmosphere to induce n-type properties. For this, CNT composite paper was prepared using the cationic surfactants DODMAC( dimethyl octadecyl ammonium=chloride, cationic surfactant) and DDAC as dispersing agents. The fabricated DSSCs were evaluated in terms of photoelectric conversion efficiency and fill factor (FF). As a result, DSSCs using DODMAC increased the efficiency from 5.04 × 10−3% to 13.37 × 10−3% and the FF from 0.13 to 0.21. When DDAC was used, the efficiency increased to 17.11 × 10−3% and the FF improved to 0.27.