Limited energy sources due to increasing energy needs from year to year makes a great desire to realize alternative technologies for renewable energy sources. One of them is photoelectrochemical based solar cell devices such as Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). The DSSC system consists of TiO2 semiconductors, N719 dyes, I-/ I3- electrolytes, and Pt/FTO electrodes. So far, DSSC is quite promising as an alternative device for renewable energy sources. However, there is still an important thing to note in DSSC is the existence of short photocurrents that cause hole electrons to be disrupted; hole become empty and in the long term cause damage. Therefore, efforts should be made to overcome them. One of them is the treatment by adding 3-phenyl propanoic acid loading to the TiO2 photoanode sensitized N719. In this study, tested the effect of adding co-absorbent with variation concentration of 0.1; 0.2; 0.3; 0.4 and 0.5 mmol/L and variation of immersion time for 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours. The results of TiO2 nanotube preparation were characterized using SEM-EDX, XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis DRS, and potentiostat. While the TiO2/N719/PPA preparation was characterized using UV-Vis DRS and tested for efficiency in the DSSC assembly. The best DSSC efficiency test results were 7.30% at the optimum concentration of 3-phenyl propanoic acid co-absorbent 0.5 mM and the optimum immersion time at 18hours.
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