Kim, Boeun Park, Se Woong Kim, Jae-Yup Yoo, Kicheon Lee, Jin Ah Lee, Min-Woo Lee, Doh-Kwon Kim, Jin Young Kim, BongSoo Kim, Honggon Han, Sunghwan Son, Hae Jung Ko, Min Jae 2024-01-20T12:03:54Z 2024-01-20T12:03:54Z 2021-09-05 2013-06-12 1944-8244 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/127966 A facile method for increasing the reaction rate of dye adsorption, which is the most time-consuming step in the production of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), was developed. Treatment of a TiO2 photoanode with aqueous nitric acid solution (pH 1) remarkably reduced the reaction time required to anchor a carboxylate anion of the dye onto the TiO2 nanoparticle surface. After optimization of the reaction conditions, the dye adsorption process became 18 times faster than that of the conventional adsorption method. We studied the influence of the nitric acid treatment on the properties of TiO2 nanostructures, binding modes of the dye, and adsorption kinetics, and found that the reaction rate improved via the synergistic effects of the following: (1) electrostatic attraction between the positively charged TiO2 surface and ruthenium anion increases the collision frequency between the adsorbent and the anchoring group of the dye; (2) the weak anchoring affinity of NO3- in nitric acid with metal oxides enables the rapid coordination of an anionic dye with the metal oxide; and (3) sufficient acidity of the nitric acid solution effectively increases the positive charge density on the TiO2 surface without degrading or transforming the TiO2 nanostructure. These results demonstrate the developed method is effective for reducing the overall fabrication time without sacrificing the performance and long-term stability of DSSCs. English American Chemical Society N719 SENSITIZER NANOPARTICLES SPECTROSCOPY ELECTRODES FILMS RAMAN Rapid Dye Adsorption via Surface Modification of TiO2 Photoanodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Article 10.1021/am401034r 1 ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, v.5, no.11, pp.5201 - 5207 ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 5 11 5201 5207 scie scopus 000320484000094 2-s2.0-84879079132 Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Materials Science, Multidisciplinary Science & Technology - Other Topics Materials Science Article N719 SENSITIZER NANOPARTICLES SPECTROSCOPY ELECTRODES FILMS RAMAN dye-sensitized solar cells dye adsorption reaction kinetics acid treatment adsorption time