Titanium Dioxide Nanostructures for Solar Energy Harvesting

Abstract: Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most widely used semiconductors in photovoltaics and photocatalysis because it is nontoxic, abundant, stable and photoactive. However, the wide bandgap, low electron mobility and short minority carrier diffusion length of TiO2 limit its quantum efficiency in these applications. In this work, we present a solution chemical approach for making TiO2 nanostructures (including rutile TiO2 nanowires on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate, anatase TiO2 nanorods/nanoflakes on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate, and anatase TiO2 nanowires on titanium foil) for improving the performance of TiO2 in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), photoelectrochemical cells (PEC) and photocatalysis.

Biography:Bin Liu received his B.Eng. (2002) and M.Eng. (2004) in chemical engineering from the National University of Singapore with Professor Hua Chun Zeng and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Minnesota (2011) with Professor Eray S. Aydil. He also worked as a postdoctoral researcher (2011-2012) in the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley with Professor Peidong Yang. He is currently an Assistant Professor in School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Nanyang Technological University. Bin has extensive experience in synthesis of nanostructured materials and has been working on nanostructured materials for energy conversion and energy storage for more than 10 years.