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Three-dimensionally ordered macroporous TiO2 electrodes: Fabrication of inverse TiO2 opals for pore-size-dependent characterization

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Abstract

The increased use of viscous electrolytes in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) has revitalized the interest in three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) structures as potential electrodes. The simplest approach to a 3DOM structure, such as inverse opals, is colloidal assembly followed by precursor infiltration and calcination. However, current assembly methods are often optimized for very narrow particle size ranges due to the colloidal forces specific to the method used. Using five particle sizes, ranging from 0.5 to 10 μm, we have studied the particle-size dependence of six commonly used colloidal assembly methods and its effect on the resulting inverse opal structure using scanning electron microscopy and Fast Fourier Transforms. Our results indicate a clear correlation between particle size and colloidal assembly method. The information provided by our study will enable systematic studies on inverse opal TiO2 electrodes with various pore sizes, in which the influence of the inverse opal preparation methods used is minimized.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from PSC-CUNY Awards (Nos. 69038-0038, -0039, and -0040) and an Electricity Storage Research Seed Grant from the CUNY Energy Institute. SM acknowledges NSF IGERT (No. 0221589) and CENSES (NSF No. 0833180) for graduate fellowships. Prof. Raymond Tu is acknowledged for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, The City College of New York, New York, 10031, USA

    Sonia S. Mathew, Stephen Ma & Ilona Kretzschmar

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  1. Sonia S. Mathew
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Correspondence to Ilona Kretzschmar.

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Mathew, S.S., Ma, S. & Kretzschmar, I. Three-dimensionally ordered macroporous TiO2 electrodes: Fabrication of inverse TiO2 opals for pore-size-dependent characterization. Journal of Materials Research 28, 369–377 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.311

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