Adhesion and performance of polymer gel electrolytes

Here at the HPMI, a novel photovoltaic device structure was created, called the wire-shaped dyesensitized solar cell (WS-DSSC). This cell has been primarily synthesized and fabricated in the laboratory environment with no control. To date, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs or DSCs) have reached an efficiency of 11.9%, which is one of the fastest inclines towards higher efficiency cells. Therefore, a repeatable manufacturing process is needed to fully transfer the incredible gains of this structure. This will greatly influence the field of organic electronics, specifically organic solar cells. Due to the lack of volatile materials, the use of a solid-state electrolyte (SSE) could increase the safety of organic electronic devices. The specific scope of this research is the development of anoptimized SSE by introducing a polymer material to an aqueous electrolyte, creating a solid-state electrolyte. The printability aspect of this solid-state electrolyte is also studied to enable the use ofadditive manufacturing in the fabrication of WS-DSSCs. Upon analyzing the viscosity flow curves generated by the collected data they reveal that PVDF, specifically at the 8 wt/wt% concentration, has a much higher initial viscosity than the PEO solution of the same concentration. Leading to the conclusion that it will demonstrate a higher level of shape retention when compared to a PEO solution. Numerically, the initial viscosity of the PVDF sample was 2,780 [Pa*s] compared to just 4.82 [Pa*s] generated by the PEO sample. Conclusive data about the printing behaviors both PEO and PVDF electrolyte samples were not collected for the purposes of comparison. The use of a solid-state electrolyte in additive manufacturing techniques such as fused deposition modeling to print an SSE will greatly improve the speed at which organic electronics can be produced.