A small conductive piece of glass was taped on the borders. The tape contained the titanium paste, and maintained the paste to be the specific height. To make the titanium paste, titanium dioxide powder was mixed with acetic acid until it had a paint consistency. The paste was left to dry. After, the tape was removed.
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After the paste is dry, the glass was set on a hotplate at its full capacity. This was done to observe sintering. In other words, the titanium paste was heated to become more porous for the next steps. To know that the sintering has occurred, a color change has to be seen. The titanium paste should be seen changing from white, to brown, and then back to white. After, the glass should be taken off of the heat and left to cool.
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At this stage, dye was required. The image demonstrates the reduction technique. Berries were boiled down in a small amount of water. After this heat was applied, this was taken of the heat source(the hotplate) and left to cool. The other technique was, again, crushing the dye and then it was ready for application.
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Once we had the dye, it was then pipetted onto the DSSCs. From observations, the placing the cell into the dye turned out to be ineffective, as the cell did not receive an even layer of dye and chipping of the titanium dioxide paste was noticed. After the application of the dye, it was then left to soak the dye into the paste.
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From here, the cell can now be tested.
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