Acetylacetone-Based Electrolyte in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell

Dye sensitized solar cells attract much attention for a clean energy generation device. Among several solvents for the electrolyte, we investigated here the cell characteristics with acetylacetone as a solvent. The electric conductivity of the electrolyte increases as the concentration of polyethylene glycol (PEG) decreases or that of ionic liquid increases. The addition of pyridine into the electrolyte improves both the open voltage and the short current density. On the other hand, the replacement of PEG with fluorinated oligomer in the gel electrolyte highly increases the short current density where the open voltage is not varied. As the concentration of ionic liquid increase, the open voltage and the short current density gradually increase. When more than 20 wt.% of the ionic liquid was mixed, the gelation was not obtained. As a result, acetylacetone is a practical solvent for a gel electrolyte with the fluorinated oligomer and ionic liquid.