Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
fabrication cost, small synthesis scales, and underdeveloped processing methods
associated with nanomaterials prevent them from progressing to commercial scale
applications. How to go about affecting this transition from lab bench to industrial
scales will be the primary research focus of future work in this field. Clearly, it is
necessary to have a comprehensive collection of review chapters covering the
current state-of-art research progresses, ongoing challenges, and possible future
directions in which to apply nanomaterials for renewable energy applications.
In this topic, researchers actively working on renewable energy contribute their
views on how nanomaterials would be beneficial for the development of high
performance yet low-cost renewable energy sources. With comprehensive cover-
age of fundamental knowledge, in-depth background information, status of current
research and development, and an outlook for future directions, this topic aims to
provide general information for undergraduate and graduate students interested in
nanomaterials and their applications in renewable energy, and serves as a hand-
book
and
reference
for
advanced
readers
such
as
materials
scientists
and
researchers working on renewable energy or related fields.
An overview of each chapter included in this topic is given in the following
paragraphs under different categories, which we expect to provide readers with a
brief idea about the content of this topic and help them navigate to areas of
interest.
1 Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Solar cells, also known as photovoltaic devices (PVs), directly convert incident
solar photons to electricity, and are one of the most studied solar energy systems
because they employ clean and abundant resources and show great potential to
satisfy future global energy demands. The current PV market is dominated by
single crystal silicon-based solar cells that deliver power conversion efficiencies of
15 % or higher. However, these first-generation solar cells still suffer from several
inherent deficiencies, such as high fabrication cost, heavy weight, and inevitable
use of toxic chemicals. DSSCs, a new generation of high performance and low-
cost solar cells, have attracted tremendous attention in the past decades owing to
several advantages such as low fabrication cost, low toxicity, and high power
conversion efficiency. A typical DSSC consists of several key components,
including an electrically conductive support (e.g., transparent conductive film), a
nanostructured semiconductor film (e.g., TiO 2 ), a sensitizer (e.g., ruthenium dye
N719), an electrolyte (e.g., iodide/triiodide couple), and a counter electrode (e.g.,
Pt-coated electrode). In order to develop DSSCs with sufficiently high perfor-
mance for commercial scale fabrication, optimization on the above-mentioned
components should be carried out to achieve higher light absorption, better charge
collection and transport, minimal recombination, and long-term device stability.
Among all semiconductors studied for DSSCs, TiO 2 has been regarded as the most
promising material for photoanodes in DSSCs due to its appropriate electronic
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