Mesoporous anatase TiO2 microspheres with interconnected nanoparticles delivering enhanced dye-loading and charge transport for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

Mesoporous anatase TiO 2 microspheres with interconnected nanostructures meet both large surface area and connected-structure for electron transfer as ideal nano/micromaterials for application in solar cells, energy storage, catalysis, water splitting and gas sensing. In this work, mesoporous anatase TiO 2 microspheres consisting of interconnected nanoparticles were synthesized by template-free, one-step fast solvothermal process, where urea was used as capping agent to control phase and promote oriented growth. The morphology was assembled by nucleation-growth-assembly-mechanism. The mesoporous anatase TiO 2 microspheres with interconnected nanoparticles were further utilized as efficient photoelectrodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), which were beneficial to capacity of dye loading and charge transfer. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) based on the optimized thickness of TiO 2 photoelectrodes was up to 7.13% under standard AM 1.5   G illumination (100   mW/cm 2 ).