Electrochemical Preparation of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles for Dye-sensitized Solar Cells Application
In this study, copper oxide nanostructures were prepared by an easy, simple, short time and economical electrochemical method using polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as stabilizing agents. Copper is used as precursors as melt anode electrodes during electrolysis to prepare CuO particles. The characterization of the prepared CuO NPs was studied by field emission scanning (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The FE-SEM images of CuO / PVA and CuO / PVP were both rectangle and regular cube shapes respectively. TEM images were prepared from CuO / PVA and CuO / PVP. They had an average size of 30-50 nm. The XRD results revealed the hexagonal structure of CuO nanoparticles. The optical properties of the prepared CuO / PVA and CuO / PVP nanoparticles were studied through UV / VIS spectroscopy. The optical band gap was found to be 3.60 eV and 3.75 eV for CuO / PVP and CuO / PVA. Dye solar cells were designed using CuO / PVA and CuO / PVP as positive electrodes (front electrode) and graphite as cathode (back electrode) deposition on the surface of ITO glass in the presence of two types of natural dyes, these are cabbage and spinach dyes, and iodine / iodine electrolyte solution. The PV cells prepared using spinach dye were more efficient. It is noticed from the data that the dye has a very important role in increasing the efficiency of the solar cell, as the cells made from spinach gave a much higher efficiency than the cells prepared from the red cabbage dye in all cases.