Vol.1 No.

4 2012

Scientific Research Journal of India

63

All-Oxide Solar Cells: The Way of the Future

Akshay Vijay Dongarwar*
Abstract: We as a world are looking at our globe depleting of its natural resources. The quantity of coal presently available can lead us through for twenty more years at maximum considering the growing demand for high quality coal and natural resources and to suffice the growing population and bettering lifestyle. Again, on one side we have cut throat technological advancement in the silicon valley and the mobile world and on other, we have fairly advanced technologies for bringing in better, faster, more efficient and cheaper solutions to the environmental concerns. The question is basically inspired from this ever daunting situation. Cant we have a cheap and highly effective solar energy treatment plant which can actually reach poor countries and help them get over their energy crisis without undergoing high-end processing in posh labs like is done for silicon cells? Even in one of the fastest growing economies of world, India, silicon processing is not done by any industry commercially to make solar cells. All the pre-processed cells are imported and further distributed because of the complexity in the process. Also, being cheap and easily available, it must have a huge life like silicon cells have. So, it should possess the best of silicon while eliminating the negatives. Can we find an alternative to conventional solar cells that can reach out to everyone?

Keywords: All Oxide Solar Cell

THE QUESTION We as a world are looking at our globe depleting of its natural resources. The quantity of coal presently available can lead us through for twenty more years at maximum considering the growing

demand for high quality coal and natural resources and to suffice the growing population and bettering lifestyle. Again, on one side we have cut throat

technological advancement in the silicon

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valley and the mobile world and on other, we have fairly advanced technologies for bringing in better, faster, more efficient and cheaper solutions to the

polish of cavity from atmospheric reaction. Such cavity behaves as metal-metal junction solar cell (termed M-M cavity solar cell). But using nanowires and nanotubes increases the functionality further as diffraction light rays occurs. Again, using metal oxide makes further sense as they are chemically under thermodynamic

environmental concerns. The question is basically inspired from this ever daunting situation. Cant we have a cheap and highly effective solar energy treatment plant which can actually reach poor countries and help them get over their energy crisis without undergoing high-end processing in posh labs like is done for silicon cells? Even in one of the fastest growing economies of world, India, silicon

equilibrium. Another approach is used which is of titanium dioxide for photosensitization.

RESEARCH The main challenge with producing a solar cell with whole new materials is the availability of photo sensitive materials and their production. I had prepared a project for the prestigious KVPY

processing is not done by any industry commercially to make solar cells. All the pre-processed cells are imported and further distributed because of the

complexity in the process. Also, being cheap and easily available, it must have a huge life like silicon cells have. So, it should possess the best of silicon while eliminating the negatives. Can we find an alternative to conventional solar cells that can reach out to everyone?

scholarship, where I tried to theoretically explain the use of metal-metal junction cavity cell for emitting electrons. The same research is used here, but with some changes to make it further effective and to eliminate short-comings. Here, I present an all-oxide solar cell fabricated from vertically oriented zinc oxide nanowires

HYPOTHESIS A cavity of metal m2 (W2) with thin polish of metal m1 (W1, W1<W2) on inner surface, with a pin hole is kept at the focus of the solar concentrator coinciding the pinhole and focus. Pinhole is covered with transparent glass to protect inner

and

cuprous

oxide

nanoparticles.

It

consists of vertically oriented n-type zinc oxide nanowires, surrounded by a film constructed from p-type cuprous oxide nanoparticles. The idea behind using metal oxides is to eliminate the effects of atmosphere. Oxides being benign, are safe

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from environmental contamination. The use of cuprous oxide as solar cells is a very well studied since last 20 years. Adding another metal-oxide film seemed difficult at first as the oxides are already in stable states and to make use of metalmetal junction films, we had to change the physical properties to excite them. But, with the knowledge of photo-electricity (diffusion) that I had acquired in the recent months made me think a step further and the idea of using nanowires and nano-particles that respond better to incident light seemed possible. In the second part, I used titanium dioxide, another successful oxide to take in the solar light and convert them into

5 mM solution of zinc acetate dihydrate in absolute ethanol was prepared. Two drops of this solution were placed onto an indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrate (Thin Film Devices, ~40-50 /square). The substrate was then rinsed with absolute ethanol and blown dry with nitrogen. The dropcasting, rinsing and drying was repeated four times per substrate. The substrates were then

annealed in air at 350C for 30 minutes, converting the Zn(OAc)2 into ZnO, and then cooled to room temperature. This process was then repeated a second time to ensure a conformal layer of ZnO. The nanowires were then grown by placing the seeded substrate in an aqueous solution containing 25 mM zinc nitrate hexahydrate, 25 and 5 mM mM

electricity (Research done by Dr. M. Graetzel ). The cell was not taken as it was. I just used pure titanium dioxide dust here as polyphyrine derivatives. I did not use dyes as is done in Graetzel cell but instead let the oxide in white colour. Its property of reflecting back visible range light was later used and sorted out with design. Being from an engineering

hexamethylenetetraamine,

polyethyleneimine at 90C. The substrate was suspended upside-down to prevent any larger ZnO aggregates from

accumulating on the surface. Typical growth times ranged from 30-60 minutes, yielding wires that averaged from 4001000 nm in length and 30-50 nm in diameter. After the growth, the nanowire arrays were rinsed thoroughly with

background, I designed a model, that could make use of both these oxide films efficiently and expected to get a desired output of >12% efficiency.

deionized water, then annealed at 400C for 30 minutes to remove any residual

EXPERIMENT Zn oxide film preparation:

organics on the nano wire surface.

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air. After 12 hours, the burgundy solution turned into deep green, indicating the oxidation of the copper nanoparticles into Cu2O. The Cu2O nanoparticles underwent further cleaning by repeated precipitation with ethanol. Finally, the nanoparticles were dispersed in toluene for dropcasting onto the ZnO nanowire arrays. The processing required no posh research labs and could be done without much efforts. The titanium oxide film is prepared the usual Graetzel cell way. Except, we do not use dye. The main motto was to simplify the The Cu2O nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared as follows: A solution of copper (I) acetate (0.5 g), trioctylamine (15 mL) and oleic acid (Alfa Aesar, 99%, 4 mL) was flushed with nitrogen, then rapidly heated to 180C under nitrogen flow. The solution was maintained at this temperature for 1 hour, then was quickly increased to 270C and held for one additional hour, ultimately producing a burgundy colloidal solution, which are metallic copper nanoparticles. The solution was cooled to room DATA The complete experiment was done by using the available technologies at process. Dying induces lot of

complexity and we want the process to remain easy.

disposal. Instead of using the paraboloid sun-tracking reflector concentrator, a fine beam of SODIUM VAPOUR LAMP was used to create a similar effect. The metalmetal oxide junction solar cell and the titanium oxide cell were tested over a long period of time to get accurate readings. The cuprous oxide-zinc oxide junction cells were studied first as they formed the key research. A fine layer of the junction nanoparticles was taken and placed in a small glass box. The glass was designed in such a way that it didnt let the incident

temperature, at which point absolute ethanol was added to precipitate the nanoparticles. The supernatant was

removed and the nanoparticles were redispersed in hexane and then exposed to

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light get out and caused multiple internal reflections, thereby reproducing the effect as we see in the model. The input currents and output currents were first measured for a silicon solar cell of known efficiency. It gave the total losses caused due to atmosphere and other resistances in the wire. Considering the same,the silicon solar cell was replaced by the meta-metal junction cell. Calculating the output currents for same input current given t sodium vapour lamp and subtracting the effects of losses previously calculated, the efficiency was calculated to be The details of the experiment are given as follows There were mainly 2 methods employed to double check the results 1) V-A meter, where voltage of input was noted and then the output current. Thus the power of cell was measured. 2) A solar cell's energy conversion efficiency (eff), is the percentage of incident light energy that actually ends up as electric power. This is calculated at the maximum power point, Pm, divided by the input light irradiance (E, in W/m2) under standard test conditions (STC) and thesurface area of the solar cell (Ac in m2). eff=P/EA Similar procedure was carried out for Titanium dioxide cell. The net efficiency was found out as 12.2374% Now, we observe that the efficiency of the proposed cells with the given design comes out to be quite more than that of the silicon cells. Thus, one coupling the cells, the efficiency will increase further. http://www.srji.co.cc Max power point 1.0243 Light irradiance 1000w/m^2 Area is 12*8 cm^2 or 0.0096 m^2 Efficiency= 10.6697 1 2 3 10.2 10.3 10.2 Max power point 1.146 w Light irradiance 1000 w/m^2 Area is 12*8cm^2 or 0.0096 m^2 Efficiency=11.9374 OBSERVATION The observations of the experiment that I performed are listed below For the Metal-metal oxide junction cell: Sr No 1 2 3 Voltage (V) 11.5 10.6 11.4 Output Current (mA) 100 99 100

For the titanium dioxide cell Sr No Voltage (V) Output current (mA) 100 100 99

Here, an interesting trend observed is that the maximum power point doesn't change much for a considerable change of input voltage in case of metal-metal oxide junction cells. The reason is unknown.

importing silicon cells was never cheap. Hence, here, with technologically

advanced institutes in the nation like IITs and NITs the implementation and

bettering the scope of the idea can be done. A major issue was designing.

CONCLUSION Thus, as the results showcase, using some of the most common oxides and some simple primary treatment processes

How could we make most of the sunlight. The answer came with the paraboloid concentrator.

How could we use it at all times during the day? The secret lied with the solar tracking device which had become pretty common.

coupled with engineering ideas, we were able to increase the efficiency of solar energy harnessing devices by an

outstanding ~6-7% (results show 4.3% but that is under lab conditions). Thus, the basic idea of trying to use the metal oxides arising from a simple urge to use environmentally inert materials turns out to be a revolutionary alternative for the conventional silicon solar cells. The trait that make the idea highly successful is that the processing is very easy and can be done on a commercial level with some material engineering guidance. Also, it turns out to be a relief for countries like India and other developing countries as

How would we place the cells to get output from both? The design came to me by instincts. After a host of designs, the most suitable and easy to construct was used.

Titanium di-oxide reflects back the visible light. I offered a solution in the design.

At some places, the solar energy is directly used for heating purposes. Thus a band filter can be employed to filter out the harmful ultraviolet and infra-red light.

CORRESPONDENCE:
*29, Nelco Housing Society, Near Nagarjuna Trust Hospital, Khamla-Nagpur-440025. Contact- +91 9175017645, Email-id: adongarwar@gmail.com