(Improvement of production of zinc oxide particles for application in solar cells)

Abstract

Nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) has physicochemical characteristics with high importance for use in solar cells. Standardization of the dimensions and regularity of the nanometric particles is hard to obtain, and some factors may interfere in particle size, as the nature of the anion salt precursor, reaction temperature and amount of water. The aim of this work is to study the variables that influence ZnO nanoparticles synthesis, in order to apply in solar cells. Incomplete factorial design Box-Behnken (3₃) was applied, according to coprecipitation method, for three variables: concentration of Zn(NO₃)₂ (mol.L^-1), reaction medium temperature (ºC) and reaction time (h). Particles characterization was made by light scattering measurement, analysis by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), application of ZnO in solar cell with polymer (poly-3-hexylthiophene - P3HT) and photochronoamperometry measurement. Optimization results showed the following conditions: concentration of Zn(NO₃)₂ = 0.05 mol.L^-1, reaction time 20 h and temperature of 80 ºC; the lower value for ZnO particle size showed by the model was 367 nm. The nanoparticles had a crystallite with dimensions of 20 nm, 82.4% crystallinity and wurtzite-type hexagonal phase. The SEM images showed three different types of structures due to the variation of Zn(NO₃)₂ concentration. The sample ZnO_370nm + P3HT + FTO presented current density (j) of 3.86 mA.cm^-2.

Keywords:
polymer; nanotechnology; experimental design