Perovskite zinc titanate-reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite photoanode for improved photovoltaic performance in dye-sensitized solar cell

The current generation of solar cells are playing a predominant role in energy storage industries due to their economic cost, abundant, and compact design for photovoltaic applications. In this context, composite materials based on perovskite zinc titanate nanoparticles (ZnTiO3 NPs) and perovskite zinc titanate-reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite (RGO-ZnTiO3 NC) were prepared by a simple sol-gel technique. The ZnTiO3 NPs and RGO-ZnTiO3 NC were subjected to X-ray diffraction analysis for calculating crystal structure, crystallite size, microstrain, and dislocation density. The band gap energy of the ZnTiO3 NPs and RGO-ZnTiO3 NCs was found to be 2.9 and 3.1 eV, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to determine elemental species of the RGO-ZnTiO3 NC. The photovoltaic performance of the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) with RGO-ZnTiO3 NC photoanode exhibited strong dye adsorption to facilitate considerable light absorption and efficient electron transport, due to less surface trapping sites compared to unmodified ZnTiO(3)NPs photoanode based DSSC. The RGO-ZnTiO3 NC photoanode demonstrated best photovoltaic performance with a short-circuit current density of 4.27 mA cm(-2) and better photoelectric conversion efficiency of 1.11%, which is similar to 2.6 folds higher than the DSSC with ZnTiO3 NPs photoanode.