Investigation of ion transport and its effect on the photovoltaic performance in the quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells

In this paper, we investigated the diffusion behaviour of I-3(-) in the mixture of ethylene carbonate (EC) and propylene carbonate (PC) electrolyte solidified by polyacrylonitrile ( PAN, molecular weight: 60,000). The effect of the ion diffusion process on the photoelectric properties was also studied. The ion diffusion process was found to be the main factor to the photoelectric properties in the quasi-solid state dye-sensitized solar cells. Some ideas, such as the optimization of the thickness and the concentration of I-3(-) in the electrolyte, were proposed to improve the transport velocity of I-3(-).