Effect of energy band misalignment and morphology in In₂O₃-CNTs on electron transport in dye-sensitized solar cell

This study provides important insights in performance degradation of In2O3-MWCNTs (0.4 and 0.5 wt.%)-based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) using chemical-bath deposition technique. In2O3-MWCNTs (0.4 wt.%) exhibited the highest power conversion efficiency of 0.312% with low electron recombination rate, keff of 1256.72 s−1, and faster electron lifetime, τeff of 0.80 ms compared to In2O3-MWCNTs (0.5 wt.%). The energy band misalignment between the conduction band of In2O3 photoanode and FTO caused severe electron recombination in In2O3-MWCNTs (0.5 wt.%). Therefore, this study can be used as a benchmark of 0.4 wt.% as the optimum concentration of MWCNTs in In2O3 for DSSC.