Rapid, 5 min, low temperature aqueous platinization for plastic substrates for dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

This paper reports a rapid (5 min), low temperature (120 °C) method to platinize the counter electrodes of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) devices. This new method uses aqueous solutions and is based on chemical bath deposition of an activating Pd layer followed by Pt only using H2 gas as the reductant. This method has been tested on flexible, plastic substrates (indium tin oxide-coated polyethylene terephthalate or polyethylene naphthalate, ITO-PET or ITO-PEN, respectively). We report device efficiencies up to 7.2% on ITO-PET which is comparable to devices made using high temperature (400 °C) processing on rigid, fluoride-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass counter electrodes. The method is scalable and suitable for continuous roll-to-roll production. Keywords: Solar energy, Manufacturing, Flexible substrates, Low temperature sintering