Design and Preparation of Nano-Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

In this paper, firstly, titanate nanotubes was synthesized by hydrothermal method with commercial antase-type TiO2 powder as the raw material. TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) can be obtained by heat-treating the as-prepared titanate nanotubes at 400 °C. Secondly, an electrode with 30 % TNTs and 70% nanocrystalline TiO2 was designed and prepared successfully. By using the nano-electrode as the photoanode of DSC, the light-to-energy conversion efficiency of 5.42 % was obtained. In addition, the effect of hydrothermal temperature on the crystal growth of nanotubes and the effect of tert-butyl pyridine (TBP) on the photoelectric performance of the DSC were also discussed.