Rapid growth of TiO ₂ nanoflowers via low-temperature solution process: Photovoltaic and sensing applications

This paper reports the rapid synthesis, characterization, and photovoltaic and sensing applications of TiO ₂ nanoflowers prepared by a facile low-temperature solution process. The morphological characterizations clearly reveal the high-density growth of a three-dimensional flower-shaped structure composed of small petal-like rods. The detailed properties confirmed that the synthesized nanoflowers exhibited high crystallinity with anatase phase and possessed an energy bandgap of 3.2 eV. The synthesized TiO ₂ nanoflowers were utilized as photo-anode and electron-mediating materials to fabricate dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) and liquid nitroaniline sensor applications. The fabricated DSSC demonstrated a moderate conversion efficiency of ~3.64% with a maximum incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) of ~41% at 540 nm. The fabricated liquid nitroaniline sensor demonstrated a good sensitivity of ~268.9 μA mM ^-1 cm ^-2 with a low detection limit of 1.05 mM in a short response time of 10 s.