Flexible and Compressible Goretex-PEDOT Membrane Electrodes for Solid-State dye-sensitized solar cells

A porous, flexible electrode based on a PTFE (Teflon) membrane (Goretex) coated with a metallic current collector and a conducting polymer (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), PEDOT) has been developed for applications in solidstate dye-sensitized solar cells. Its low sheet resistance and compressibility make it an ideal electrode on uneven TiO2 surfaces with high efficiency and reproducibility. The porous nature of the electrode enables the feed-through of reactants and treatment agents, which opens up exciting opportunities to interface these photoelectrochemical devices with electrocatalytic, energy conversion, and storage systems. Postfabrication bonding of the photoanode and the Goretex-Au-PEDOT electrode is demonstrated.