Photopolymers for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are nowadays establishing their role as photoelectrochemical devices that are able to provide good performance while maintaining low cost and environmental impact. In the last decade, the scientific community has developed materials demonstrating high sunlight conversion efficiencies (up to 13%), but the issue of long-term stability has often been overlooked, despite it represents a key issue for this technology. Considering the challenges and expectations for the solar energy conversion devices in the near future, in the course of this PhD Thesis the possible exploitation of photopolymerization has been demonstrated: the process was used to prepare quasi-solid electrolytes as well as external coatings able to impart high stability and efficiency to DSSC devices. Hereby, the variety of photopolymers obtained by a solvent- and catalyst-free preparation process demonstrated to be suitable as electrolytes and coatings for highly stable and efficient DSSCs. Their testing in lab-scale devices proved the highly promising prospects of third generation photovoltaic panels based on light and cheap polymeric materials. Moreover, the findings described in this PhD Thesis embody the initial spirit of the DSSC technology, which was the mimicking of natural photosynthesis exploiting cheap, abundant, green and easily processable materials.