An Investigation on the Stability Enhancement of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Fabricated with Ethyl Cellulose Based Gel Electrolyte

Abstract Liquid electrolyte based Dye-Sentisized Solar Cells (DSSC) often suffers stability problems which limit its durability. The stability of the dye-sensitized solar cell is enhanced with the use of gel electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte in this paper. A detailed effective fabrication method of the DSSC based on gel electrolyte has been presented here. In this approach, the gel-state electrolyte solution was prepared by mixing the traditional liquid-state electrolyte with ethyl cellulose as a gelator and was placed into the DSSC in its quasi-solid state. The prepared gel state electrolyte showed appreciable conductivity, which is comparable to those of traditional liquid electrolytes by Electrochemical impedance analysis. The gel electrolyte based DSSCs exhibited a considerable power-conversion efficiency of 1.29% and enhanced stability compared to the traditional liquid electrolyte based DSSC.