An Efficient Dye-sensitized Photoelectrochemical Solar Cell Made from CaCO3-coated TiO2 Nanoporous Film

A convenient —and quick to realize— approach for the synthesis of an ultrathin overlayer of CaCO3 on TiO2 thin films is suggested. Since dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical investigations on CaCO3-thin-layer-coated TiO2 nanoporous films are hitherto unreported, we performed such investigations by sensitizing our TiO2–CaCO3 films with tetrabutylammonium cis-di(thiocyanato)-N,N′-bis(4-carboxylato-4′-carboxylic acid-2,2′-bipyridine)ruthenate(II) and achieved power conversion efficiencies over 9.3% under illumination of AM 1.5 simulated sunlight (95 mW/cm2).