Molecules (Oct 2020)

Influence of Sputtering Temperature of TiO<sub>2</sub> Deposited onto Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanosheet as Efficient Photoanodes in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Foo Wah Low,
  • Goh Chin Hock,
  • Muhammad Kashif,
  • Nurul Asma Samsudin,
  • Chien Fat Chau,
  • Amaliyah Rohsari Indah Utami,
  • Mohammad Aminul Islam,
  • Cheng Yong Heah,
  • Yun Ming Liew,
  • Chin Wei Lai,
  • Nowshad Amin,
  • Sieh Kiong Tiong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25204852
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 25, no. 20
p. 4852

Abstract

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Renewable solar energy is the key target to reduce fossil fuel consumption, minimize global warming issues, and indirectly minimizes erratic weather patterns. Herein, the authors synthesized an ultrathin reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheet with ~47 nm via an improved Hummer’s method. The TiO2 was deposited by RF sputtering onto an rGO nanosheet with a variation of temperature to enhance the photogenerated electron or charge carrier mobility transport for the photoanode component. The morphology, topologies, element composition, crystallinity as well as dye-sensitized solar cells’ (DSSCs) performance were determined accordingly. Based on the results, FTIR spectra revealed presence of Ti-O-C bonds in every rGO-TiO2 nanocomposite samples at 800 cm–1. Besides, XRD revealed that a broad peak of anatase TiO2 was detected at ~25.4° after incorporation with the rGO. Furthermore, it was discovered that sputtering temperature of 120 °C created a desired power conversion energy (PCE) of 7.27% based on the J-V plot. Further increase of the sputtering temperature to 160 °C and 200 °C led to excessive TiO2 growth on the rGO nanosheet, thus resulting in undesirable charge recombination formed at the photoanode in the DSSC device.

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