Published on February 2011 | Polymer Science and Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering

654Macromolecular Research, Vol. 19, No. 7, pp 654-659 (2011)www.springer.com/13233The Polymer Society of KoreaSynthesis and Characterization of Polymer Electrolytes Containing Phenothiazine-Based Click Polymers for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Applications

A new series of phenothiazine-based polymeric electrolytes were developed to obtain a high power con-version efficiency (PCE) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Phenothiazine-based click polymers were synthe-sized using Cu(I)-catalyzed click reaction methods. The resulting polymers were soluble in common organicsolvents and had a reasonable molecular weight. The thermal properties, emission spectra, and energy band gap ofsynthesized click polymers were also investigated. The polymer electrolytes were composed of iodide and triiodideredox species embedded in phenothiazine-based click polymers or polyacrylonitrile (PAN) as a polymer matrix.DSSCs were fabricated with a configuration of SnO2:F/TiO2/N719 dye/polymer electrolyte/Pt devices using theseclick polymers or PAN as an electrolyte components and compared photovoltaic performance. The maximum PCEof the phenothiazine-based click polymers as polymer electrolytes for DSSCs was obtained 5.30% (at 1 sun). Theseenhanced click polymers are expected to find applications as an electrolyte component in DSSCs in the future.