The lithium insertion behavior of nanoparticle (3-D) and nanosheet (2D) architectures of TiO2(B) is quite different, as observed by differential capacity plots derived from galvanostatic charging/discharge experiments. DFT+U calculations show unique lithiation mechanisms for the different nanoarchitectures. For TiO2(B) nanoparticles, A2 sites near equatorial TiO6 octahedra are filled first, fol...

A method is developed for electro-deposition of thin films of the conducting polymer polythiocyanogen on conducting tin oxide glass or other conducting substrate by anodic discharge of SCN− ions form a solution KSCN in propylene carbonate. Films are found to be highly stable and resistant to heat and chemical action. SEM pictures indicate that the films are uniform and free of pin hole. Band ga...

Novel ruthenium multi carboxylic complexes (RMCCs) have been synthesized by using ruthenium nitrosyl nitrate, 1,2,4,5-benzenetetracarboxylic acid (H4btec) and 4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (BPhen) as photosensitizers for titanium dioxide semiconductor solar cells. The complexes were characterized by (1)H-NMR, FT-IR, UV-Vis, ICP and CHN analyses. The reaction details and features were then de...

Photoinduced interfacial electron transfer (ET) from molecular adsorbates to semiconductor nanoparticles has been a subject of intense recent interest. Unlike intramolecular ET, the existence of a quasicontinuum of electronic states in the solid leads to a dependence of ET rate on the density of accepting states in the semiconductor, which varies with the position of the adsorbate excited-state...

ABSTRACT Water pollution by organic pollutants is a continuous and increasing problem of global concern. In this paper, we developed nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) titania (TiO2) based nanocomposite for the photocatalytic degradation o-chloranil via aqueous wet impregnation. Different NCC loadings (10, 20, 40, 80%) were used, several analytical microscopy techniques characterised NCC/TiO2 cata...

New XRD total pattern fitting software MStruct was used in study of crystallization and microstructure evolution of magnetron-deposited TiO2 thin films and powders. It is an extension of the FOX program for structure determination from powder diffraction and it includes in particular the effects and corrections necessary for thin film analysis when parallel beam geometry and asymmetric detector...

We report a new semitransparent inverted polymer solar cell (PSC) with a structure of glass/FTO/nc-TiO2/P3HT:PCBM/MoO3/Ag/MoO3. Because high-temperature annealing which decreased the conductivity of indium tin oxide (ITO) must be handled in the process of preparation of nanocrystalline titanium oxide (nc-TiO2), we replace glass/ITO with a glass/fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate to improv...

We have prepared single crystalline SnO2 and ZnO nanowires and polycrystalline TiO2 nanotubes (1D networks) as well as nanoparticle-based films (3D networks) from the same materials to be used as photoanodes for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. In general, superior photovoltaic performance can be achieved from devices based on 3-dimensional networks, mostly due to their higher short circ...

We developed plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with tailor-designed Au-TiO₂ nanostructures integrated into the photoanode. Mutually antagonistic Au-TiO₂ core-shell structures supported on SiO₂ spheres (SiO₂@TiO₂@AuNP and SiO₂@AuNP@TiO₂) were prepared and incorporated as additives into the photoanodes of the DSSCs. The DSSCs employing the nanocrystalline-TiO₂ (nc-TiO₂)/SiO₂@TiO₂@AuNP ...