Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) have garnered attention for renewable energy applications, due to their promising photo-conversion efficiencies, and potential for cheap production. In previous work we have applied microwave heating to the deposition of N719 dye to silanated and unsilanated TiO<sub>2 </sub>layers on FTO, resulting in more rapid dye deposition.  Additionally, microwave heating appears to increase the efficiency of our DSSCs in comparison with conventionally heated slides.   We hypothesize that this may be due to the surface carrying charge due to microwave excitation which may influence coupling of the polar dye molecule. Here we present dye deposition by applying a low voltage bias in an electrolytic solution, using chronoamperometry. Biased silanated and unsilanated substrates were compared with non-biased substrates with heating.  Preliminary data suggests that dye application with bias increases photoconductive efficiencies, with a positive correlation with increasing voltage (silanated: 0.072%-0.3V, 0.070%-0.2V, 0.014%-0.1V, 0.032%-conventional; non- silanated:  0.033%-0.3V, 0.022%-0.2V, 0.031%-0.1V, 0.008%-conventional).<br/><br/>

Application of chromophoric dyes with applied bias to increase photoconversion efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells

251st National Meeting (2016)

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