SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATIONS OF ZnO AND ZnO/CNT NANOCOMPOSITES FOR APPLICATION IN SOLAR CELL

Abstract

Low power conversion efficiency resulting from recombination of photogenerated charges in TiO2 based photovoltaic devices has caused serious challenges in photoelectrode efficiency of such devices. Hence the need to replace TiO2 with ZnO and the composite of Zinc Oxide and Carbon Nanotube (ZnO/CNT) at optimised ratio to minimise the loss of photogenerated electrons during the photovoltaic activity is important. Hydrothermal synthesis was used to synthesis nanostructured ZnO and ZnO/CNT in the ratios of 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 wt%. The synthesised nanostructured ZnO/CNT at different ratios were subjected to optical and structural characterisations using UV-Vis spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD). It was observed that the presence of CNTs enhanced the optical properties of ZnO with increasing concentration of the CNTs whilst the XRD data showed the presence of nanostructured crystalline phase of geometrical cubic and hexagonal planes of ZnO at (100), (002), (101), (110) and (102). The composite synthesised using hydrothermal synthesis revealed the suitability of the photo electrode to be used in solar cell application.