Sb2Se3 thin films prepared by chalcogenization of its metallic precursor, have been used as an active layer of solar cells. The samples were prepared using a reactor which allows growing Sb2Se3 films by selenization of a Sb layer previously deposited on Mo covered glass substrates by evaporation. The selenization process was conducted in a controlled atmosphere of an Argon-Hydrogen mixture, followed by thermal annealing under elemental selenium in a tubular furnace heated by infrared lamps. The entire process was automatically controlled using algorithms developed in the LabView programming environment. Through a study of deposition conditions which included the effect of variables such as, furnace heating rate, final annealing target temperature, annealing time and partial pressure of H2+Ar mixture, conditions were found to grow single-phase Sb2S3 films with good structural, optical and morphological properties, which indicates that the Sb2S3 films prepared by the chalcogenisation routine developed in this work, can be used as an absorber layer in solar cells. An efficiency of 4.2 % was achieved with devices fabricated using the Mo/Sb2Se3/CdS/i-ZnO/n+ ZnO/Ag architecture; this efficiency was improved to 5.3 % by incorporating a TiO2 layer between the Sb2Se3 absorber and the CdS buffer to prevent degradation of the Sb2Se3 absorber during the deposition of the CdS layer by Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) method.