Fundamental characteristics on nano porous titania layer of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) utilizing electrostatic 3D printer

We are now developing a new electrostatic 3D printer. We are now applying the 3D printer for fabricating the 3D cell structure in biotechnology and the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). The 3D printer is based on electrostatic Inkjet printer. In this case, the nozzle was fdled with the titania paste. The plate electrode was set under the nozzle. When the high voltage was applied between the nozzle and the plate electrode, small droplets were ejected from the nozzle because of balance among the high electrostatic force, gravity force, and the surface tension and the titania layer was formed. The thickness of the titania layer was controlled by the printing time, the applied voltage, and the air gap. The titania layer had many cavities. In this paper, we investigated fundamental characteristics of the nano porous titania layer. With the nano porous titania layer, the surface of the titania layer was increased, and the efficiency was higher than the solid titania layer that was fabricated utilizing doctor blade method. SEM and another experiment was applied to investigate the nano porous titania layer.