Abstract
There are some bottlenecks for long-term stability of the liquid electrolyte based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). Here we list two of the major problems leading poor long-term stability of devices : 1. The leakage of liquid electrolyte. 2. The damage of the device by ultraviolet irradiation. In this study, a new fabrication process for in-situ gel electrolyte DSSC is achieved in order to solve both the leakage problem of liquid electrolyte and the penetrating problem of gel electrolyte at the same time. To fabricate UV-protection in-situ gel electrolyte DSSC, the UV-protection electrolyte was prepared by mixing the UV absorber in certain percentage with liquid electrolyte(GBL-based) first. Polyvinyl butyral(PVB) was placed in the device before the injection of the UV-protection electrolyte, and dissoved in the liquid electrolyte to form the gel electrolyte spontaneously. The conversion efficiency recorded for the GBL-based electrolyte with 10wt% PVB and 5wt% UV absorber is 4.27%, which is about 85% of the liquid-type one, with values of Voc, Jsc, and FF of 0.73 (V), 11.73 (mA/cm2) and 0.5, respectively. Most important of all, the UV- protection in-situ gel electrolyte DSSC exhibits a well long-term stability, surprising 95% of its originl efficiency after 1000 working hours. With the high durability, resulting in the DSSC outdoor application in the near future. Key word: Dye-sensitized solar cell, gel-type electrolyte, long-term stability, UV absorber, Polyvinyl butyral(PVB)