Faculty of Engineering, Chemical Engineering department published a Research study entitled: Synthesis and characterization of nanostructures for solar cell applications z

The study introduces two novel Titania based Nano-composites for boosting the photoelectric properties of the dye synthesized solar cells (DSSCs). The first one is nitrogen-copper-cadmium doped titania (N-Cu-Cd doped TiO2) and the second one is nitrogen-cobalt-cadmium doped titania (N-Co-Cd doped TiO2). Both are prepared using sol-gel method. The molar ratio of Titanium (IV) isopropoxide (TTIP) precursor : Co, Cu, and Cd dopant is kept at 1:0.1 ratio in all the experiments and that of TTIP: N-dopant is varied between 1:0.1 and 1:1 for each nanocomposite. Material characterization of the obtained Titania based Nano-composites is performed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) to reveal the surface morphology and composition. X-ray diffraction (XRD) is used to determine the phases of the prepared nanocomposites. Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy together with differential reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) are used to disclose the absorption region and to calculate the energy gap (Eg) using Tauc plot for both nanocomposites, respectively. Eg values for the thin film of N-Cu-Cd doped TiO2 and that of N-Co-Cd doped TiO2 are found to be 3.4 and 2.9 eV, respectively. Power conversion efficiency (PCE) of DSSCs using N-Cu-Cd doped TiO2 (2.94%) is four times of that obtained using TiO2 (0.719%). The PCE is also examined for both samples in fluorescent dye.