Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

For regenerative energy sources, not only high efficiencies but also economical facts are important. Therefore, the well-developed high-efficiency solar cells are not competitive to traditional energy sources without financial support.
The development of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) represents a promising alternative to conventional Si-solar cells due to their good cost-to-performance-ratio. However, the efficiencies and lifetime are lower than Si solar cells up to now. In addition, the DSSCs could be an answer on the ERoEI problem of the conventional photovoltaics (invested energy return problem).
In our group we focus on fundamental aspects of charge transfer mechanisms in DSSCs which we consider as not fully understood ⁽¹⁾. Furthermore, we investigate effects and processes that are influencing the DSSCs lifetime.

⁽¹⁾ F. Marlow, A. Hullermann, L. Messmer: Is the Charge Transport in Dye-sensitized Solar Cells Really Understood? Adv. Mater. 27 (2015) 2447–2452
DOI:10.1002/adma.201404883