Developing Circuits of Solid-State Photoelectrochemical Solar Cells Fabricated Utilizing Chitosan-PEG Blend as Electrolyte

Abstract

Solid-state photoelectrochemical solar cells were fabricated using cadmium sulfide (CdS) films as photoanode and polymers blend based on chitosan and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a solid electrolyte. CdS films were deposited onto the ITO glass substrates by chemical bath deposition method. The solid-state electrolyte was made by blending between chitosan and PEG as a matrix for oxidation-reduction (redox) couple from potassium iodide/iodine (KI/I₂). The individual solar cells were formed into the sandwich structure ITO/CdS/Gel electrolyte/ITO. Influence of KI/I₂ in the polymer blend matrices to the ionic conductivity of the electrolyte was studied. It found that addition of KI/I₂ into the polymers blend electrolyte significantly affected the performance of the solar cells. Irradiation source also significantly affected the performance of the solar cells, here was used solar light source and tungsten lamp source. To increase the electricity production, the four individual solid-state photoelectrochemical solar cells were connected together in the series, parallel and series-parallel combination circuits. Series circuit resulted in the open-circuit voltage (V_oc) is almost four times that of a single cell, on the other hand, the parallel circuit resulted in the short-circuit current (I_sc) is also almost four times that of a single cell. Meanwhile, the combination of series-parallel circuits produced a short-circuit current (I_sc) and an open-circuit voltage (V_oc) values that are between the value generated by the other series and parallel circuits alone