• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.29-32
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• 2003

Polymer electrolyte membranes are developed for the applications to facilitated transport membranes, fuel cells and solar cells. The polymer electrolyte membranes containing silver salt show the remarkably high separation performance for olefin/paraffin mixture in the solid state; the propylene permeance is 45 GPU and the ideal selectivity of propylene/propane is 15,000. For fuel cell membranes, the effects of the presence and size of the proton transport channels on the proton conductivity and methanol permeability were investigated. The cell performance for dye-sensitized solar cells employing polymer electrolytes are measured under light illumination. The overall energy conversion efficiency reaches 5.44 % at 10 ㎽/$\textrm{cm}^2$, to our knowledge the highest value ever reported in the polymer electrolytes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.80-87
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• 2019

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted great attention as sustainable energy devices. The efficiency and long-term stability of DSSCs are greatly influenced by electrode materials and electrolytes. In this review, we focused on the electrolytes of DSSCs. Polymer electrolyte membranes have been proposed as an alternative to conventional liquid electrolytes in DSSCs. Conventional liquid electrolytes can exhibit a high efficiency, but due to some problems such as poor long-term stability of device and leakage of liquid, much interest in polymer electrolyte membranes continues to rise and the papers on polymer electrolytes membranes have been extensively reported recently. This review covers the concept and development of polymer electrolyte membranes for DSSCs, and discusses the efficiency and electrochemical properties of DSSCs, highlighting the modification of polymer matrix, the introduction of additives such as organic-inorganic plasticizers and ionic liquids.

• Proceedings of the Polymer Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.63-64
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• 2006

The solid state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) employing polymer electrolytes show high overall energy conversion efficiency as high as 4.5 % at 1 sun conditions. The improved efficiency may be primarily due to the enlarged interfacial contact area between the electrolyte and dyes in addition to the increased ionic conductivity, which were done by utilizing liquid oligomers, followed by in situ self-solidification, to form the solid DSSCs: "Oligomer Approach". The effect of the charge transfer resistance at the counter electrode side on the efficiency has also been investigated.

• Polymer Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.314-320
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• 2010

• Polymer Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.539-544
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• 2011

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.89-92
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• 2013

Poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) polymers with different electric conductivities were synthesized directly on a FTO substrate via a chemical polymerization method and applied as a platinum (Pt)-free counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The catalytic properties of the PEDOT as a function of electrical conductivity were studied using cyclic voltammograms, J-V measurements and impedance spectroscopy. The PEDOT counter electrode with around 340 S/cm conductivity exhibited the best performance as a counter electrode for tri-iodide reduction. The ability to modulate catalytic activity of PEDOT with changes in conductivity shows one of promising routes for developing new counter electrode of Pt-free DSSCs.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.145-159
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• 2021

Light soaking (LS) stability in polymer solar cells (PSCs) has always been a challenge to achieve due to unstable photoactive layer-electrode interface. Especially, the electron transport layer (ETL) and photoactive layer interface limits the LS stability of PSCs. Herein, we have modified the most commonly used and robust zinc oxide (ZnO) ETL-interface using an organic dye molecule and a co-adsorbent. Power conversion efficiencies have been slightly improved but when these PSCs were subjected to long term LS stability chamber, equipped with heat and humidity (45℃ and 85% relative humidity), an outstanding stability in the case of ZnO/dye+co-adsorbent ETL containing devices have been achieved. The enhanced LS stability occurred due to the suppressed interfacial defects and robust contact between the ZnO and photoactive layer. Current density as well as fill factors have been retained after LS with the modified ETL as compared to un-modified ETL, owing to their higher charge collection efficiencies which originated from higher electron mobilities. Moreover, the existence of less traps (as observed from light intensity-open circuit voltage measurements and dark currents at -2V) are also found to be one of the reasons for enhanced LS stability in the current study. We conclude that the mitigation ETL-surface traps using an organic dye with a co-adsorbent is an effective and robust approach to enhance the LS stability in PSCs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.360-361
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• 2008

A new kind of SBM co-polymer binder as styrene, n-butyl acrylate, and methacrylic acid (SBM) monodisperse co-polymer binder materials basted on $TiO_2$ pastes was synthesized and this $TiO_2$ pastes were applied of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The SBM co-polymer binder was prepared by soap-free emulsion copolymerization using a PEG-EEM macromonomer. The photoanodes were characterized by morphology investigated from field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The photoelectrochemical properties of the thin films and the performance of DSSCs were measured by photovoltaic-current density. DSSC based on the emulsion co-polymer binder was obtained conversion efficiency of 7.1% under irradiation of AM 1.5($100mWcm^{-2}$).

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.168-174
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• 2009

In this paper Gel polymer electrolyte using Poly(Vdf-HFP) was fabricated and compared with liquid type electrolyte. The chemical structure and ingredients of fabricated gel electrolyte was investigated and identified to gel polymer electrolyte by FTIR, gel electrolyte was verified to polymer state by SEM From the experiment result, the better component ratio of Propylene carbonate and Diethyl carbonate for gel type electrolyte was 5 : 5. The conversion efficiency of fabricated DSCs using gel electrolyte was $3{\sim}4[%]$, expected to alternate with liquid type electrolyte.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.392-399
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• 2019

A highly transparent interfacial layer (HTIL) to enhance the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was prepared via a polymer-assisted (PA) approach. Poly(vinyl chloride)-graft-poly(oxyethylene methacrylate) (PVC-g-POEM) was synthesized via atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and was used as a sacrificial template. The PVC-g-POEM graft copolymer induced partial coordination of a hydrophilic titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) sol-gel solution with the POEM domain, resulting in microphase separation, and in turn, the generation of mesopores upon calcination. These phenomena were confirmed using Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, UV-visible light transmittance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The DSSCs incorporating HTIL60/20 (consisting of a top layer with a pore size of 60 nm and a bottom layer with a pore size of 20 nm) exhibited the best overall conversion efficiency (6.36%) among the tested samples, which was 25.9% higher than that of a conventional blocking layer (BL). DSSC was further characterized using the Nyquist plot and incident-photon to electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) spectra.