Founded by:	Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNC - UEFISCDI
Contract number:	29/ 2017, project PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016-0556
Project manager:	Anca - Luiza IONESCU, anca-luiza.ionescu@physics.pub.ro
Project leader:	University "Politehnica" of Bucharest
Project duration:	12/07/2017 - 31/12/2019
Scientific field:	PE5_8 - Intelligent materials - self assembled materials
Laboratory:	Physics of Materials Laboratory
Abstract:	The project is devoted to improving the overall performance of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The project is devoted to improving the overall performance of DSSCs. Since the uniqueness of DSSCs resides in their operating mechanism based on different materials, each handling specific tasks, one has to enhance separately each component's performance. Likewise, the dye/semiconductor and electrolyte/dye pairs have to be appropriately selected, in order to match the energetic requirements and to optimize the kinetics of the charge transport processes. A novel class of ionic liquid crystal electrolytes which form hexagonal-columnar mesophase will be synthesized, in which the I-/I3- redox couple is confined in one-dimensional ion conductive channels. Designing DSSCs having innovative architectures i.e. single or bi-layered TiO2 photoanodes and hexagonal-columnar ILC electrolytes, is an important goal of this project. The improvement of hole transport will be attempted for lab-scale perovskite DSSC. The traditional perovskite-based solar cell will be modified, a liquid crystalline mixture will be added to fill the pores of the solid structure in order to increase charge-carrier transport rates. The interdisciplinary nature of the project will offer the opportunity of increasing the expertise in the field of ionic liquid crystals, nanomaterials synthesis and advanced testing of manufactured, laboratory-scale, DSSCs. The development of more suitable methods for casting titania photoelectrodes with controlled nanoparticle size and uniform distribution and the synthesis of a novel class of electrolytes posessing structural order, which can improve competitiveness of photovoltaic devices, are among our goals. A new theoretical approach to describe the charge transport in the DSSC is proposed, together with the required parameters which can increase the efficiency of solar energy conversion