Publication: Gel polymer electrolyte based on poly (acrylic acid), sodium iodide and iodine for quasi-solid state solar cells
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Date
2009-05-01
Authors
Tan, Ann Ling
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Abstract
This project is divided into two main parts, which is the preparation of optimized gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) as ionic conductor and the fabrication and characterization of solar cell. The preparation of GPE involved dissolving the ionic additive which is the sodium iodide (NaI) in deionized water and subsequent mixing with 0.5 g of poly (acrylic) acid (PAA). Iodine (I2) was added to the optimum NaI sample to further increase the ionic conductivity (σ). The temperature dependence of the GPE was found to obey Arrhenius behavior. The highest conducting (0.080 S cm-1) sample consisting of 0.5 g PAA, 0.8 M NaI and 0.02 M I2 was found to possess the lowest activation energy (Ea) of 0.029 eV. The electrochemical stability window was 1.6 V suggesting suitability of application as solar cell. The cell showed stability over 24 h with open circuit voltage (Voc) of 348, 310 and 302 mV for 0 Ω, 100 kΩ and 1 MΩ of load. Similar loads gave a current (I) under open circuit of 32, 28 and 15.5 µA. The cell achieved an of 0.67 V and short circuit current density (Jsc) of 1.42 mA to give maximum power density (Pmax) of 0.297 mW cm-2, fill factor (FF) of 0.312 and solar cell conversion efficiency (η) of 0.3%. The solar to electricity conversion of the solar cell was proven to be contributed solely by the zinc oxide (ZnO) electrode from the result of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results confirmed the evaporation of binder after heating at 400°C.