Layered Zirconium phosphate intercalated with Ru(bpy)3-viologen dyads as unusual materials for dye-sensitized solar cells: Improving efficiency by double sensitization

Abstract

The intercalation materials prepared from the laminar salt gamma-zirconium phosphate and various dyads formed from Ru(bpy)(3) and viologens were tested as photoactive components in dye-sensitised solar cells. The efficiencies significantly increased, up to 0.2 %, when the materials were treated with the panchromatic N535 dye. A mechanism for this double sensitisation process is proposed, which should enable further improvement of these gamma-ZrP-based materials as a reasonable alternative to the usual Ti-based dye-sensitised solar cells.