Synthesis of Zinc oxide nanorods via conductive polymeric template and its potential application in hybrid solar cells.

Finally my Ph.D project arrived at its final point. During these three years I have learned and experienced a lot of things in my life, from the first day when I arrived to Mexico till today that I am writing these final pages. I remember when I arrived to Mexico, I didn’t know Spanish, except some words. Everything was different from my country like the language, the weather, the culture and the FOOD. I had to learn Spanish to be able to communicate with people and manage my life. I had to learn how to eat spicy food, sweating and enjoy my meal!! It was not easy at all but it was all fun since I was in many funny situations learning Spanish! I had many good moments with my friends and during my travels in Mexico. We made good memories inside the lab, working and doing experiments and outside the lab with our friendly reunions where the science had not any place and it was just for being relaxed and far from the serious scientific life for couple of hours. As life has “up and down” to maintain its equilibrium, I had also bad moments when I was sick, tired, disappointed or missing my family, friends, language and country. Now I passed all of these good and bad moments and just one thing is left -Its me- a person who has gained more experience in life and ability of manage difficult situations. I really appreciate it and I want to say that the completion of this doctoral dissertation was not possible without the support of many people

Open-Circuit Voltage (VOC) Enhancement in TiO2-Based DSSCs: Incorporation of ZnO Nanoflowers and Au Nanoparticles

An important reason for the relatively low efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is the low open-circuit voltage (VOC) of about 0.7 V for a standard solar cell with a dye that has an absorption onset at 1.6 eV. We report an enhancement of the VOC of about 0.10 V with respect to a TiO2-based DSSC modified with ZnO nanoflowers that we prepared by a new and facile method. An additional increase of the VOC of about 0.08 V was achieved by modifying the ZnO nanoflowers with Au nanoparticles, resulting in a DSSC with an efficiency of 2.79%, highlighted by a high VOC of 0.89 V. Detailed analysis with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and intensity-modulated photovoltage and photocurrent spectroscopies (IMVS and IMPS) reveal that the main reason for the increase of VOC is related to the shift of the band edges upon coupling TiO2 with ZnO nanoflowers, even though the electron lifetime at the same charge density actually decreases. These results show the intricate interplay between band edge shift, recombination kinetics, and DSSC performance and illustrate that a higher voltage DSSC can be fabricated by modification of the photoanode materials

The effect of changing the electrolyte species volume ratio on the electropolishing of aluminum foil

In this paper, the electrochemical behavoir and surface orphology of AA1100 were investigated in commercial electropolishing electrolyte consisting of perchloric acid (HCIO4) and ethanol (C2H5OH