Role of Water in the Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Lithium Iodide–Iodine–Water–C₁₂E₁₀ Mesophase as a Gel Electrolyte in a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

By replacing volatile and flammable organic-based electrolytes with gel electrolytes, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) may be a viable more practical alternative to other clean energy sources. Although they present promising alternative, still have some drawbacks for applications, such as low ionic conductivity infusion difficulties into the pores of working electrode. Here, we introduce new one-step fabrication method that uses lyotropic liquid crystalline (LLC) electrolyte (LiI:I2:H2O:C12H25(OCH2CH2)10OH) dye (N719) construct DSSC performs (7.32%) 2.2 times better compared traditional two-step production. Water plays key role in electrolyte, where H2O/LiI mole ratio is around 2.57 under ambient laboratory conditions (ALCs); however, this linearly increases 4.00 then 5.85 at 40 75% humidities, respectively, without affecting two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal structure mesophase. The accordingly, by (4.8 × 10–5 10.6 10–5) 13.1 (63.0 S/cm) from ALC humidity, respectively. Increasing water phase improves LLC mesophase short-circuit current (Isc) DSSC, but negatively influences open-circuit voltage (Voc) cell, equilibrium reaction between LiI I2, anchoring molecules over titania surface.