Dye Sensitized Solar Cells – An Investigation of p-type DSSCs

Two of the major problems that our world is facing is the energy crisis and the rising of the global temperature. Scientists are called to investigate and assess the problem and the results are very alarming. The fossil fuels used until now for the majority of our energy demands would face a shortage in the foreseeable future. In addition, the use of fossil fuels has a major contribution to the rising of the global warming. The solution may be hidden in the sky during a cloudy day, the sun. The sun can produce in 1.5 hours the energy needed to power the global activities for a year. Among the renewable energies, solar energy is the most abundant, and the technology to harvest this energy already exists in the form of solar cells. There are many types of solar cells, and their assessment is done when taking under consideration their cost of production and the efficiency with which they can produce electricity. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), fulfil the requirements concerning low cost fabrication and green disposal but on the other hand their efficiency lies below the commonly used silicon solar cells, even though their theoretical efficiency could overcome the efficiency of the silicon cells used today. Moreover, dye sensitized solar cells have a good performance in indoor application under low light intensities, in contrast to the silicon solar cells. All facts considered DSSCs are excellent candidates for research since they answer the environmental problems of our society. In this thesis p-type DSSCs were investigated. These could replace the platinum electrode in n-type DSSCs used today a produce tandem DSSCs.