Diatoms are one of the most successful photosynthetic organisms and given the important role that their shells (frustules) play in light trapping we explored their use in multilayered materials for application as photoanodes in dye sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). We find a substantial improvement in energy conversion efficiency of 30%, increasing from 3.5% to 4.6% with diatom incorporation.
The templated growth of gold nanoparticles in 3D arrays within the nanopores of unicellular diatoms involves pretreament of the skeletons with poly(vinylpyridine) which has a unique dewetting property. This self-assembly provides a nanochemical analogue of lithography for engineering complex nanostructures. The process can be universally applied to the many types of diatom skeletons which vary in size and structure.
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