The effect of tourmaline additives in TiO2 photoanode for high-efficiency dye sensitized solar cells

Tourmaline is a kind of borosilicatemineral and has spontaneous polarization property. Due to this property, it can generate a feeble current around 0.06 mA[1]. We fabricated the TiO2 photoanode with different wt.% ratio of tourmaline and investigated the effect of tourmaline additive on dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). We carried out electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and current density-voltage (J-V) measurement. The results showed that the electron lifetime and the power conversion efficiency of the DSSCs with TiO2 photoanode containing 3wt% tourmaline were enhanced by about 42% and 20%, respectively, as compared to the DSSCs using pristine TiO2 photoanode.