TUGAS METODE PENELITIAN KELAS B

REVIEW JURNAL

“Ain Shams Engineering Journal :

INCORPORATION OF CARBON NANOTUBES IN PHOTOACTIVE
LAYER OF ORGANIC SOLAR
CELLS “

MUHAMMAD IMAM ASRAWI

NRP. 02311740000067

Dosen Pengampu :
Dr. Ir. Ronny Dwi Noriyati M.Kes

DEPARTEMEN TEKNIK FISIKA

Fakultas Teknologi Industri dan Rekayasa Sistem
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember
Surabaya 2021
Judul Incorporation of carbon nanotubes in
photoactive layer of organic solar cells
Jurnal Ain Shams Engineering Journal
Volume 12, Issue 1, Halaman 897-900
Volume dan Halaman

Tahun Maret 2021

Idris Khan

Manoj Kumar Panjwani

Penulis Danyal Asif

Zahid Ali

Danish Khan

Penelitian dilakukan dengan tujuan

mengembangkan teknologi lapisan photo-
aktif sel surya organik dengan menggunakan
Tujuan Penelitian
CNT (Carbon Nano-Tubes multi wall) dengan
berbagai konsentrasi (1 sampai 5%) untuk
menambah efisiensi daripada sel surya
organik.

Subjek Penelitian Subjek dalam penelitian tersebut adalah

teknologi lapisan photo-active dalam sel
surya organik yang digabungkan dengan
 teknologi Nano-Tubes agar mendapatkan
transmitasi yang lebih tinggi dari sel surya
organik.
Penelitian dilakukan dengan metode studi
literatur dan perancangan, persiapan alat
dan bahan yang digunakan, serta pembuatan
secara langsung dengan melapisi.

Metode yang digunakan pada sel surya

Metode penelitian organik ini adalah dengan menggabungkan
donor dan aseptor lapisan elektroda dengan
CNT sebelum diberikan ke sel surya organik
agar tidak terjadi entaglement. lalu
difungsionalisasi dan sonikasi agar CNT dapat
bergabung dengan sel surya organik.

CNT dengan konsentrasi 4% mampu

memberikan Jsc 8.64mA cm-2 merupakan yang

Hasil Penelitian tertinggi pada eksperimen ini. dengan hasil ini

diharapkan CNT mampu menggantikan
Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) karena kekuatan
mekanik dan elektrik CNT yang lebih baik.

Kekuatan Penelitian Kelebihan dari Carbon Nano Tubes dalam

penelitian sel surya organik yaitu :
 a. Carbon Nano-Tubes merupakan sebuah
revolusi teknologi material cerdas yang bisa
digunakan pada berbagai macam elektronik.

b. Dalam penerapannya, lapisan photo-aktif

dilapisi oleh Carbon Nano-Tubes agar
memiliki konduktivitas yang tinggi.

c. Lapisan CNT yang digunakan merupakan

Multi-Wall Carbon Nano-Tubes yang memiliki
banyak lapisan CNT sehingga sel surya
organik memiliki daya tahan yang lebih kuat.

d. penggabungan CNT pada lapisan photo

aktif pada sel surya organik memiliki
fleksibilitas yang lebih tinggi.

Kelemahan Penelitian Kekurangan dalam penelitian ini yaitu

pengembangan CNT yang masih jauh
memberikan kesulitan pada peneliti untuk
menggabungkan CNT dengan lapisan
 photoaktif serta CNT masih kurang jernih dan
resistansi atau short circuit yang masih terjadi

Multi-Wall Carbon Nanotubes merupakan

salah satu pengembangan pada solar cell
organic agar dapat memberikan kekuatan,
fleksibilitas yang lebih dan mengurangi
resitivitas. penggabungan CNT harus
Kesimpulan melewati berbagai proses seperti ultra-
sonikasi dan menggabungkan dengan 2
elektrode yang tepat (donor dan aseptor)
agar tergabung dengan baik. namun untuk
kejernihan dan resitivitas CNT masih bisa
dikembangkan

Saran untuk penelitian Carbon Nanotubes

ini adalah dapat ditemukannya elektroda
yang tepat sehingga efektivitas
penggabungan CNT pada sel photo-aktif lebih
Saran
baik untuk kedepannya. serta riset lebih
lanjut bagaimana kejernihan CNT lebih baik
dan resitivitas CNT berkurang agar lebih
efisien.
lampiran indeks Jurnal
 Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 897–900

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ain Shams Engineering Journal

journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com

Engineering Physics and Mathematics

Incorporation of carbon nanotubes in photoactive layer of organic solar

cells
Danish Khan a,b,⇑, Zahid Ali b, Danyal Asif a, Manoj Kumar Panjwani a, Idris Khan a
a
Renewable Energy and Clean Power, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China
b
Electrical Engineering Department, Indus University, Karachi, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Among Renewable energy resources, solar power generation plays an important role and is paid more
Received 20 January 2020 attention by modern researchers. Nowadays, extensive research is being carried to increase the efficien-
Revised 6 May 2020 cies and stability of thin-film solar cells. Among thin-film solar cells, organic solar cells also known as
Accepted 8 June 2020
plastic solar cells are relatively cheaper. They can be made in different colors and are very light in weight.
Available online 14 August 2020
These solar cells can be included in infrastructure such as windows, walls, car windshields, etc. Carbon
nanotubes (CNTs) have some extraordinary properties such as high conductivity, high mechanical
Keywords:
strength, and high aspect ratio along with the best physical and chemical properties. In this research,
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)
Organic solar cells (OSCs)
multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with different concentration (1 to 5%) have been incorporated
MWCNTs (Multiwall carbon nanotubes) in the active layer of organic solar cells (OSCs), and improvement in short circuit current is reported. CNTs
come along with entanglement and poor solubility. Ultra-sonication technique is used for dispersion and
covalent functionalization technique is applied to increase the solubility of nonotubes.
Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
The carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have extraordinary properties
such as high mechanical strength, high aspect ratio, high conduc-
tivity, high stability, etc. The CNTs are made up from the graphene
sheets in which carbon atoms are arranged in hexagonal lattice.
The CNTs come in SWCNTs, DWCNTs and MWCNTs. In SWCNTs
the single sheet is rolled, while in DWCNTs is made up by rolling
two sheets and MWCNTs have back to back multiple walls as
shown in Fig. 1.
CNTs has been widely used in sensors, solar cells, transistors
and other electronics materials [1].The reasons behind the incorpo-
ration of CNTs in OSCs are their properties such as low resistivity,
high specular transmittance in a range of UV to MIR. They also have
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: danishjadoon90@gmail.com (D. Khan).
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
high flexibility which further can play important role in flexible
solar cells. Another advantage of incorporating CNTs is that they
can be fabricated easily [2–4]. These fabrication techniques are
electric arc discharge electrolysis, chemical vapor deposition,
low-temperature solid pyrolysis, catalyst arrays, etc. The deposi-
tion of CNTs is also quite easy such as spin coating, dip coating,
spray coating, solgel method, vacuum filtration, electrophoretic
deposition, sputter deposition, LBL (Layer-by-layer) self-
assembly, chemical vapor deposition, etc. These methods are dis-
cussed in detail in previous research reports and reviews [5]. The
methods of fabrication have been improved day by day and a
new solution with advanced robotic technologies on industrial
level has been introduced. In on research, a programmable spin
coating has been introduced which is much perfect and accurate
than conventional spin coating methods [6].
The mechanical strength of CNTs is too high having the Young’s
modulus of 270–950 GPa and tensile strength of 11–63 GPa [7]
while the thermal conductivity is upto 2000 W m 1 K 1 [8]. Due
to these mechanical and thermal properties CNTs are also inte-
grated in different materials other than film solar cells [9–12].
The mechanical strength and thermal stability of CNTs suggest that
these nanotubes are the good candidates for the conducting elec-
trode layer of OSCs, which is also discussed in detail in this report.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2020.06.002
2090-4479/Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
898 D. Khan et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 897–900
Fig. 1. SWCNTs MWCNTs and TWCNTs structure.
2. CNTs in photoactive layer of organic solar cells
The typical bulk heterojunction OSC is shown in Fig. 2. The pho-
toactive layer is the combination of donor and acceptor materials.
The electrode 1 must be transparent with high work function, and
electrode 2 must be with low work function.
In all these experiments classical blend of donors and acceptors
is used in photoactive layer i.e. P3HT and PCBM. Different concen-
trations of MWCNTs are incorporated in photoactive layer and
results have been compared. It has been reported that the blending
of SWCNTs (with 0.5% concentration) increased the solar cell
performance by 50% and the Isc was increased upto 20%
(4.95 mA/cm2) [13], but it also have been noted that increase in
the concentrations of SWCNTs lead to poor performance of solar
cells. Power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.4% at illumination at
100 mW cm 2 AM1.5 was reported [13] but in our research while
the PCE reaches up to 1.88%. CNTs electron transpose property is
extraordinary due to which it has been incorporated in different
layers of OSCs as electron acceptor material [14–17] and transpar-
ent electrode [18–22]. The CNTs performance in OPVs is still not as
impressive as expected due to some issues such as nanotubes
entanglement, non-alignment and metallic impurities. These
issues are responsible for the decrement in hole mobility and
increment in recombination pathways. In our research ultrasonica-
tion and functionalization has been applied on nanotubes before
integrating them in OSCs which helps in resolving the impurities
and entanglement issues. After sonication the super bundles are
removed by covalent azide functionalization.
3. ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM:MWCNTs/Ca/Al**
In this experiment the 100 nm CVD (chemical vapor discharge)
grown MWCNTs are used. The solar cells structure of this experi-
ment is shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 2. Typical organic solar cell.
Fig. 3. MWCNTs incorporated organic solar cellstructure.
The CNTs have some issues such as entanglement, impurity, sol-
ubility and nonalignment due to which these nanotubes cannot
perform according to the researchers’ expectations. So in this
research the CNTs are sonicated and then functionalize to remove
the problems of entanglement and solubility. It has been reported
that functionalization of CNTs can improve their solubility in sol-
vents [23] due to the exfoliation of nanotubes bundles.
The covalent functionalization is applied to MWCNTs. The
10 mg of MWCNTs are heated in microwave and then suspended
in 3 neck flask with 10 ml of ortho-dichlorobenzene (ODCB) as a
solvent. After that sonication process was carried out to disperse
MWCNTs for the 5 h and the vessel was placed in a pre-heated
oil bath at 180 °C. In a separate test tube, 100 mg of azide was dis-
solved in 5 ml of chlorobenzene and added slowly through a syr-
inge to the reaction vessel over a period of 40 min. Whole
process was carried out in inert atmosphere created by N2 gas.
The azide was disappeared after few hours, and then the reaction
was quenched by removing heat. After cooling the mixture at room
temperature, the centrifugation is applied to remove nanotubes at
2000 rpm. The supernatant was collected and then the product was
precipitated by using acetone. This precipitated product is then
collected by centrifuging at 100,000g. The pellet was washed
repeatedly with Millipore water, and the final product (3 mg)
was dried in the oven at 75 °C.
After the functionalization and sonication of MWCNTs, these
tubes are blended with P3HT: PCBM along with 1 ml of
cholorobenzene. The mixing ratio of P3HT and PCBM was 1:1,
15 mg each. Five different types of blends were prepared by stir-
ring at about 8 h with different concentrations of MWCNTs i.e.
1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%. The ITO coated glass was washed well and
cleaned through ultrasonic bath, and thin layer of PEDOT: PSS
was deposited through spin coating, after that the active layer
solution (MWCNT:P3HT:PCBM) was coated. The device was dried
at room temperature for 2 h and then Al and Ca layers were depos-
ited through thermal evaporation. The device fabrication process
was completed here. The measurements were taken through
Keithley 2425 source meter exposing the devices to a 300 W Xe
Arc lamp ORIEL simulator, fitted with an Air Mass 1.5 Global (AM
1.5G) filter, calibrated to an intensity of 1000 W m 2.
3.1. Results and discussions
The functionalization and sonication of MWCNTs removes the
major bundling from MWCNTs and improved the solubility of
MWCNTs. The dispersion of MWCNTs CNTs has been noticed
through optical microscope at 20X magnification, Fig. 4 are the
microscopic image before sonication while Fig. 5 explains he dis-
persion through sonication.
The electrical measurements and solar performance are shown
in below Table 1.
It can be seen from the table that Jsc showed an improvement.
The nanotubes with 4% concentration of MWCNTs in photoactive
layer showed the best results all. The Jsc of 8.64 mA cm 2 is
 D. Khan et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 897–900 899

surface of ITO and liberating oxygen and metal ions, and it reduces
the device performance by contaminating the adjacent organic PV
layer. Another drawback of PEDOT:PSS is the degradation of device
performance upon introducing water into the active layer. The high
work function of CNTs can help in hole transportation [24].
Studies have shown that CNTs can replace the conventional
electronics due to its good work function along with excellent
mechanical and electrical properties [25]. CNTs doesn’t need any
specific environment for deposition and fabrication, they can be
deposited on room temperature. For OSCs electrode there are three
main requirements, i.e. high transparency, high work function and
low sheet resistance. CNTs have better transmittance but along
that sheet resistance is very high too. The sheet resistance of CNTs
is reported as 1kῼ/sq at 95% transmittance [26], while the ITO
sheet resistance was reported as 5 to 15ῼ /sq with transmittance
of 72% to 78% [27]. There is huge difference between these two
Fig. 4. MWCNTs under optical microscope at 20 magnification (Before
Sonication).
results, so CNTs should be made transparent before using them
as the replacement of ITO and PEDOT:PSS. The reason behind this
high resistance is the contacts between the tubes. The flexible solar
cells are in discussion these days. The flexibility is one of the best
property of CNTs. ITO is not flexible but CNTs are and according to
one calculation their conductivity didn’t decrease even after 500
bending cycles [28].

5. Conclusions

MWCNTs are incorporated in the photoactive layer, and it

showed improvement in the short circuit current and fill factor
because MWCNTs provide ballistic pathways in the photoactive
layer of OSCs. It has been noted that MWCNTs perform better up
to 4% concentration but the short circuit current drops again from
8.64 to 6.99 mA/cm2, the reason can be the short-circuiting of
MWCNTs as they increase their quantity. Perfect dispersion, align-
ment, and purification are the challenges for CNTs, and perfor-
mance can be made better if we overcome these challenges.
Fig. 5. MWCNTs under optical microscope at 20 magnification (After Sonication). Ultra-sonication technique was applied for dispersions, but it
breaks the nanotubes and changes their properties. For future, dis-
persion through surfactant can be tried. For perfect alignment elec-
Table 1 tric or magnetic fields can be applied or nanotubes can be grown
Parameters of solar cells. along one direction to improve the electrical and chemical proper-
MWCNTs concentrations Voc (v) Jsc (mA/cm2) F.F PCE (%) ties. CNTs can also be incorporated in electrode, but sheet resis-
1% 0.51 5.52 0.41 1.18 tance and transparency issues needed to be solved first through
2% 0.46 6.52 0.42 1.28 doping.
3% 0.53 7.11 0.38 1.44
4% 0.49 8.64 0.44 1.88
Declaration of Competing Interest
5% 0.53 6.99 0.42 1.59

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-

observed at 4% concentration in P3HT: PCBM. It was also very
interested that the F.F increased with the concentration of MWCNT
and reached it maximum value at concentration of 4% of weight in
P3HT: PCBM. However, the Voc didn’t show much improvement.
The increment in the efficiency is observed due to high Jsc and a
good fill factor in comparison.
4. CNTs to replace ITO and PEDOT: PSS
Normally ITO is used as electrode in OSCs because it has high
work function and is transparent but ITO also has some drawbacks
such as it is brittle, weak, and expensive to fabricate. It has rougher
surface due to which PEDOT: PSS is deposited as electron extrac-
tion layer. The PEDOT:PSS is regarded as an efficient hole extrac-
tion layer in OSCs because of its high work function, good optical
transparency, and high electrical conductivity, but it also has some
negative characteristic of acidity, which participates in etching the
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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