Synthesis and characterization of poly(1‐vinyl‐3‐propylimidazolium) iodide for quasi‐solid polymer electrolyte in dye‐sensitized solar cells

Abstract The synthesis conditions of ionic liquid 1‐vinyl‐3‐propylimidazolium iodide (ViPrIm + I − ) and Poly(1‐vinyl‐3‐propylimidazolium) iodide P(ViPrIm + I − ) were studied in this work. P(ViPrIm + I − ) as a single‐ion conductor providing iodine was designed to develop a quasi‐solid polymer electrolyte based on PVDF/PEO film for dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The samples were characterized respectively by high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), etc. The results showed that the single‐ion conducting quasi‐solid polymer electrolyte (SC‐QPE) exhibited high ionic conductivity of 1.86 × 10 −3 S cm −1 at room temperature measured by CHI660C Electrochemical Workstation. Moreover, solar cells assembled using the SC‐QPE yielded an open‐circuit voltage of 0.83V, short‐circuit current of 8.01 mA cm −2 and the conversion efficiency of 2.42%. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010