Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSCs) are a promising alternative to silicon-based photovoltaics and recently efficiencies over 12 % have been reported. Most DSSCs use organic solvents as liquid electrolyte as these have been reported to give the highest efficiencies. In this hot paper, O’Regan and co-workers have re-examined water as a solvent for use in DSSCs. In this study the authors use 100 % water electrolytes with inorganic salts such as NaI. They use a range of electrolyte compositions, film characteristics and four different dyes to show efficiencies of up to 4 %.
Managing wetting behavior and collection efficiency in photoelectrochemical devices based on water electrolytes; improvement in efficiency of water/iodide dye sensitised cells to 4%
J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 23387. DOI: 10.1039/c2jm35245a (free to read for a short time)
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