Effects of varying the soaking duration of Eosin Blue sensitized TiO2 photoanodes for dye-sensitized solar cells

In the present work, Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are fabricated using synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles as photoanode and organic synthetic dye (Eosin Blue (EB)) as a sensitizer. The soaking duration of TiO2 photoanodes in EB dye are varied [24 h (S1), 36 h (S2), 48 h (S3), and 60 h (S4)] and the efficiency is calculated. From XRD, the synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles show a tetragonal crystal structure with anatase and rutile phase and it is confirmed by micro-Raman analysis. The average crystallite size is found to be similar to 8 nm and it is confirmed by TEM. BET analysis shows that the specific surface area of the sample is 147.128 m(2) g(-1). From FTIR, the strongest peak observed at 460 cm(-1) confirms the bending vibrations of Ti-O. The thermal decomposition and the phase transitions of synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles are analyzed by TGA. From UV-vis studies, the optical absorption of EB sensitized TiO2 is red-shifted. From the PL analysis, the excitonic emission band is observed at 376 nm and the oxygen vacancies are observed at 414, 465 and 530 nm. From J-V characteristics, maximum efficiency of 2.3 % is observed for DSSC fabricated with TiO2 photoanode sensitized with EB dye at the soaking duration of 48 h (S3).