Up-scaling towards commercialization of polymer electrolyte-based dye-sensitized solar cells

6 Up-scaling towards commercialization of polymer electrolyte-based dye-sensitized solar cells 

A few years ago, Motohiro and co-workers reported a comparison between solar modules assembled with DSSC, with modules made of crystalline silicon solar cells conunercialized by Siemens. During 6 months of outdoor exposure in the rooftop of a building located in the southern part of Kariya, Japan, the authors observed that the DSSC module generated 10-20% more energy than the commercial silicon-based module. These results are very promising and stimulate the research to bring DSSC into the market. 

Considering this, it should be pointed that, although the ionic conductivity of the polymer electrolyte is stUl one order of magnitude lower than the liquid electrolyte, the resistance in the solid electrolyte is not as crucial in determining the FF and r] values for large-area DSSC as the FTO layer 

23 Modules assembled with 16 series connected DSSC. 

Biancardo and co-workers assembled a semitransparent quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar module connecting in series solar cells assembled with a gel electrolyte. Each individual cell presented an efficiency of 1% under 100 mW cm . The efficiency of the whole module composed 23 cells (active area of 625 cm ) reached 0.3%. The authors claimed that, although the efficiency was higher for modules assembled with liquid electrolytes, the use of the gel electrolyte clearly improved the performance of the cells after 1 month, leading to devices with extended lifetime.  

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