Abstract
In this study, we used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as the electrode supporter of a flexible dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Because PET can not sustain a high temperature of 4500C during the sintering process, therefore we developed a method to fabricate TiO2 photoanode for flexible DSSC which can be sintered at relatively low temperature. Tetraisopropoxide (TTIP), an additive which can increase interconnection of TiO2 particles at low sintering temperature, was introduced to TiO2 paste. To reduce the recombination of injection electrons, different sizes of polystyrene sphere were added to the TiO2 photoanode. The PS spheres were removed by NMP solution and then cleaned using different solvents. We found that the flexible DSSC with the efficiency of 3.23% can be attained when 250 nm PS spheres were added to TiO2 photoanode. In addition, the open circuit voltage is increased from 0.73 V to 0.92 V as compared with the photoanode without adding PS spheres. The efficiency of the cell under bending was tested and an efficiency of 2.82% was obtained at the bending angle of 60o.