Study on the fabrication and photovoltaic property of TiO ₂ mesoporous microspheres

Titanium dioxide mesoporous microspheres with high surface area was successfully prepared by a facile one-step hydrothermal approach using polyethylene glycol (PEG, MW 200) as the soft template. Study shows that ∼15 nm TiO ₂ nanoparticles was assembled into ∼1.1 μm mesoporous microspheres. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of TiO ₂ microsphere is up to 137 m ²/g. TiO ₂ mesoporous microspheres were fabricated onto the surface of fluorine-doped tin oxide glass and used as the photoanode of dye-sensitized solar cells, which exhibits an open circuit photovoltage of 0.80 V and an overall conversion efficiency of 6.6%. Owing to the enhanced dye loading and light-harvesting efficiency, a 26% improvement in the overall conversion efficiency was achieved when compared with the commercial Degussa P ₂₅ nanoparticles.