Enhancing Efficiency and Stability in Paper-Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Using Metal Oxide Integration and Gel Electrolyte Optimization

This study investigates the performance enhancement of paper-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) through dual optimization strategies: (1) interfacial modification of carbon nanotube (CNT) composite paper with metal oxides (TiO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> and ZnO) and (2) formulation of gel electrolytes incorporating co-solvents (N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and ethylene glycol(EG)). The incorporation of ZnO into semiconducting CNT composite paper significantly improved fill factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE), especially, achieving a PCE of 15.58 × 10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−3</sup>% with EGincorporated gel electrolytes. Additionally, EG-incorporated gel electrolytes demonstrated superior operational stability compared to DMF-incorporated gel electrolytes, maintaining over 90-minute longevity. These advancements highlight of metal oxide integration and electrolyte optimization in overcoming interfacial charge transport limitations, and the validity of this improvement approach was confirmed and expected to help in the future practical application of paper-DSSCs.