Laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry of dye-sensitized solar cells: identification of the dye-electrolyte interaction

Hanna Ellis; Valentina Leandri; Anders Hagfeldt; Gerrit Boschloo; Jonas Bergquist; Denys Shevchenko

doi:10.1002/jms.3582

Laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry of dye-sensitized solar cells: identification of the dye-electrolyte interaction

J Mass Spectrom. 2015 May;50(5):734-9. doi: 10.1002/jms.3582.

Authors

Hanna Ellis¹, Valentina Leandri¹, Anders Hagfeldt^{1

2

3}, Gerrit Boschloo¹, Jonas Bergquist⁴, Denys Shevchenko⁴

Affiliations

¹ Physical Chemistry, Centre of Molecular Devices, Department of Chemistry - Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, SE-75120, Sweden.
² École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Laboratory of Photomolecular Science, Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, EPFL-FSB-ISIC-LSPM, Station 6, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland.
³ Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry - Biomedical Centre, Uppsala University, P.O. Box 599, Uppsala, SE-75124, Sweden.

PMID: 26259656
DOI: 10.1002/jms.3582

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) have great potential to provide sustainable electricity from sunlight. The photoanode in DSCs consists of a dye-sensitized metal oxide film deposited on a conductive substrate. This configuration makes the photoanode a perfect sample for laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS). We applied LDI-MS for the study of molecular interactions between a dye and electrolyte on the surface of a TiO2 photoanode. We found that a dye containing polyoxyethylene groups forms complexes with alkali metal cations from the electrolyte, while a dye substituted with alkoxy groups does not. Guanidinium ion forms adducts with neither of the two dyes.

Keywords: aqueous electrolytes; cyanoacrylic acid-based dyes; dye-sensitized solar cells; laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry; polyether chains.