Optimization of plastic crystal ionic liquid electrolyte for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell

Abstract An efficient plastic crystal-based electrolyte is prepared by employing succinonitrile as solid solvent and binary ionic liquids as charge transfer mediators for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). It was found that combining succinonitrile with ionic liquids could improve the mechanical property of electrolyte and avoid the fluidity of ionic liquid, and the fabricated solid-state solar cell shows an overall conversion efficiency of 2.14%, which can be further improved to 5.50% after optimizing the addition amount of lithium perchlorate (LiClO 4 ) as charge transfer promoter into the plastic crystal electrolyte, and the role of LiClO 4 in the plastic crystal ionic liquid electrolyte is evaluated through electrochemical and photoelectrochemical measurements. The knowledge obtained from this plastic crystal-based electrolyte exhibits new eyeshot to find solid-state electrolyte for DSSCs with high performance.