Opto-electrical and morphological characterization of water soluble conjugated polymers for eco-friendly hybrid solar cells

Solid-state Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (ss-DSSCs) are promising candidates for future low cost photovoltaic energy generation and are based on polymer/metal oxide donor/acceptor heterojunctions. However, a crucial drawback of hybrid solar cells is the use of environmental unfriendly solvents, such as toluene, chloroform, chlorobenzene, etc. in the phase of preparation. In this work towards eco-friendly processing, we use water as a solvent in the preparation of the photo-active layer for hybrid solar cells. We demonstrate eco-friendly hybrid polymer/titania solar cells consisting of water soluble polythiophene as light-absorber, donor and Hole Transporting Layer (HTL), above a TiO₂ layer that acts as an acceptor and electron conductor. The water soluble conjugated polymer materials are studied in terms of their opto-electrical and morphological properties, leading to a better understanding of the resulting photovoltaic performance. An alternative new processing method in device preparation is introduced; yielding prototype solar cells with an efficiency of 0.7%. This promising solar cell device performance can be considered as a proof-of-principle for future eco-friendly solar cells.