The mechanism for the deterioration of the lifetime of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is not clear yet, and there is still no effective way to solve the current situation. In this paper, after the DSC device was assembled and lasted for nearly 700 h, the Dyed-NSF/El interface was reconstructed by electrical erasing and the results showed that the photovoltaic performance of the cell could be regenerated. At the same time, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to analyze the changes of internal electron transport and transfer impedance, surface state defects, etc. in the process of degradation and regeneration, and inferred internal causes of cell degradation and regeneration. It was confirmed that the changes in the structure and properties of Dyed-NSF/El interface was the origin of performance degradation. The results of this paper provide a potential technology that could lead to a significant increase in device lifetime and make DSC no longer a disposable cell. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.