Technical development in dye-sensitized solar cells with product costs of 50 Yen/W

要降低染料敏化太阳能电池(DSC)的生产成本，必须提高太阳光转化为电能的效率，并使用廉价的电池部件。为了解决这些问题，我们开展了以下研究：(1)双层工作电极的技术开发，即在纳米多孔二氧化钛底层上构建以孔洞为离子通道的多孔二氧化钛覆盖层。(2)串联型DSC的技术开发，包括顶层吸附联吡啶络合染料(黑色染料)和底层吸附联吡啶络合染料(N719)。(3)代铂碳层对电极的技术开发。在第一次和第二次工艺发展的基础上，制作出了效率为9%、口径面积为50 mm~2的直流电。

The improvement of the efficiency in converting the sunlight into electricity and the use of inexpensive cell parts are necessary to reduce product costs of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). For resolving these issues, we carried out studies as follows: (1) Technical development of bilayer working electrodes, which constructed porous titanium dioxide overlayers with voids as ion path on nanoporous titanium dioxide underlayers. (2) Technical development of tandem type DSSCs, which consist of the top layer adsorbed by terpyridine complex dye (black dye) and the bottom layer adsorbed by bipyridine complex dye (N719). (3) Technical development of counter electrodes, which consist of platinum-substitute carbon layer. A 9% efficient DSSC with an aperture area of 50 mm square was fabricated from the first and second techical developments.