Apparatus-dependent sol-gel synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticles for dye-sensitized solar cells

Synthesis of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂ NPs) has been done by sol-gel-hydrothermal colloidal route in two different apparatus; one being simple stainless steel (named as TiO₂-B) and other being at constant temperature and pressure autoclave (named as TiO₂-W). These TiO₂ NPs were investigated by various characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and photoluminescence spectrophotometer. Also, it was observed that the quality of the synthesized TiO₂-W NPs is comparable with the commercial TiO₂ NPs (TiO₂-C), whereas the cost of synthesis is almost reduced to half. The synthesized TiO₂ NPs are used as the photoanode in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). DSSC with TiO₂-W showed better power conversion efficiency as compared to DSSC with TiO₂-B.