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review article

Aqueous dye-sensitized solar cells

Bella, Federico
•
Gerbaldi, Claudio
•
Barolo, Claudia  
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2015
Chemical Society Reviews

Nowadays, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are the most extensively investigated systems for the conversion of solar energy into electricity, particularly for implementation in devices where low cost and good performance are required. Nevertheless, a key aspect is still to be addressed, being considered strongly harmful for a long time, which is the presence of water in the cell, either in the electrolyte or at the electrode/electrolyte interface. Here comes the present review, in the course of which we try our best to address the highly topical role of water in DSSCs, trying to figure out if it is a poisoner or the keyword to success, by means of a thoroughly detailed analysis of all the established phenomena in an aqueous environment. Actually, in the last few years the scientific community has suddenly turned its efforts in the direction of using water as a solvent, as demonstrated by the amount of research articles being published in the literature. Indeed, by means of DSSCs fabricated with water-based electrolytes, reduced costs, non-flammability, reduced volatility and improved environmental compatibility could be easily achieved. As a result, an increasing number of novel electrodes, dyes and electrolyte components are continuously proposed, being highly challenging from the materials science viewpoint and with the golden thread of producing truly water-based DSSCs. If the initial purpose of DSSCs was the construction of an artificial photosynthetic system able to convert solar light into electricity, the use of water as the key component may represent a great step forward towards their widespread diffusion in the market.

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Type
review article
DOI
10.1039/c4cs00456f
Web of Science ID

WOS:000355485900006

Author(s)
Bella, Federico
Gerbaldi, Claudio
Barolo, Claudia  
Graetzel, Michael  
Date Issued

2015

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

Published in
Chemical Society Reviews
Volume

44

Issue

11

Start page

3431

End page

3473

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LPI  
Available on Infoscience
September 28, 2015
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/119164
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