Fabrication of photoanodes using sol-gel synthesized Ag-doped TiO2 for enhanced DSSC efficiency

Abstract A simple, less time consuming, the cost-ineffective sol-gel method was used to synthesis TiO2 nanoparticles (TiO2) and Ag-doped TiO2 nanocomposites (Ag-TiO2) by using titanium tetra isopropoxide as TiO2 and silver nitrate as Ag precursors, respectively. The XRD results show that the doping of Ag reduces the grain size from 19 nm to 12 nm. From the UV–Visible, the blue shift in absorbance was confirmed, and there is an increase in bandgap from 3.3 eV to 3.5 eV while increasing the Ag doping in TiO2. SEM analysis of pure TiO2 and 10% Ag doped TiO2 self assembled grains composed of small TiO2 particles and EDX confirms the presence of Ag in the TiO2 system. The TEM analysis of 10% Ag doped TiO2 sample shows that all the particles are in the nanometer range. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) was found to be 4.09%, and 5.6% for N3 (cis-di(thiocyanato)bis(2,2′-bipyridyl 4,4′-di carboxylate ruthenium (II)) containing acetonitrile dye) sensitized TiO2 and Ag-TiO2 nanocomposites respectively.