تهمینه جلالی

This study investigates the utilization of nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) nanoparticles to evaluate various morphological shapes of NiFe2O4 nanocomposite semiconductors to improve dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) performance. A simple and cost-effective sol-gel method was used to fabricate NiFe2O4- mixed TiO2 photoanodes for large-scale production. Compared to a reference cell, the optimized NiFe2O4-based DSSC achieved superior performance in short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage, fill factor, output power density, and overall efficiency compared to the reference (6.3% vs. 2.65%). This enhancement is attributed to the altered semiconductor morphology resulting by NiFe2O4 incorporation. Characterization techniques, including XRD, FTIR, SEM, BET, EDAX, and VSM techniques, confirmed the successful synthesis of spherical NiFe2O4 nanoparticles (15-22 nm) and their integration into the TiO2 photoanode. Moreover, the study investigates how the calcination temperature affects the characteristics of NiFe2O4. Increased calcination temperature resulted in a larger lattice parameter due to incorporating larger Ni²+ ions, and a rise in saturation magnetization due to improved crystallinity. The analysis suggests that multiple factors contribute to the efficiency improvement, including enhanced dye loading due to enhanced light absorption, increased surface area, fast collection channels for light-excited carriers, improved electron transport, reduced charge recombination, and a potential magnetic field effect from the nanoparticles. These findings demonstrate the potential of NiFe2O4-mixed TiO2 photoanodes for enhancing DSSC performance. 2194-4288