In this work, we aimed to study the effect of nanoparticles on the efficiency of dye-sensitiezed solar cells (DSSC) using polymer
gel electrolytes (PGE) of PVDF-HFP/PVA blends. The concentration of polymer blend was fixed at 10 wt% with ratios of 8:2.
The TiO2 and SiO2 nanoparticles was varied at 0.25 - 2.0 wt%. It was found that the efficiencies (K) of the cells using liquid
electrolyte and PGE were 3.49±0.05% and 3.26±0.09%, respectively. While the efficiencies of DSSCs using nanocomposite
electrolytes was considerably decreased. The best effeciency of DSSCs using PGE containing 0.25 wt% TiO2 and 0.5 wt% SiO2
were found to be 2.71±0.10% and 3.03±0.09%, respectively. This may be due to the higher viscosity of the nanocomposite gels
and phase separations between nanoparticles and polymer matrices. Furthermore, the electrical resistances of electrolytes were
investigated by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The EIS showed that DSSC using ionic liquid electrolyte (ILE)
shows the lowest Rct2 and Rdiff, and the interfacial resistances. While the DSSC containing nanoparticles exhibits the higher Rct2
and Rdiff, corresponding to their DSSC efficiency. This result corresponding with their DSSCs effeciences. The functional groups
of polymer gel electrolytes were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and the thermal properties of
polymer gel electrolytes were analysis by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) for
applications in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).