Influence of GO incorporation in TiO₂ nanofibers on the electrode efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells

Graphene oxide (GO)-incorporated TiO₂ nanofibers was successfully synthesized via a simple and effective technique, electrospinning and applied as a working electrode for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The effects of graphene oxide on the structural and photoelectric conversion performance of the DSSCs were inspected by various analytical techniques. The results suggest that presence of graphene oxide increases the amount of dye absorption which leads to high migration of photoinduced electrons to the conduction band of the collection electrode and inhibition of electron recombination. Furthermore, the presence of graphene oxide improves the electron transport from the films to the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates. Accordingly, remarkably enhanced power conversion efficiency of 4.52% was observed in case of utilizing 0.5 wt% graphene oxide-incorporated TiO₂ nanofibers as working electrode based DSSC which is higher than that of the conversion efficiency in case of pristine TiO₂ nanofibers (i.e. 1.54%). The high amount of graphene oxide content results in decrease the power conversion efficiency. Therefore, it can be claimed that graphene oxide-incorporated TiO₂ nanofibers as working electrode is a promising candidate for improving the performance of the DSSCs.