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Nanocrystalline TiO2 thin films composed of densely packed grains were deposited onto indium-doped tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates at room temperature using a chemical bath deposition technique. A layer-by-layer (LbL) process was utilized to obtain a 1.418-microm-thick TiO2/ZnO structure. The TiO2 surface was super-hydrophilic, but its hydrophilicity decreased considerably after ZnO deposition. Other TiO2/ZnO films were studied to assess their suitability as photoelectrodes in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).

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A Ti3C2TxMXene electrode decorated with NiO nanosheets was synthesized by a facile and cost-effective hydrothermal method.

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The authors report the use of chemically deposited ZnO recombination barrier layer for improved efficiency of TiO2 based dye-sensitized solar cells. The ZnO layers of different thicknesses were deposited on spin coated porous TiO2. The presence of ZnO over TiO2 was confirmed by x-ray diffraction, electron dispersive x-ray analysis, and supported by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, proved inherent energy barrier between the porous TiO2 electrode and lithium iodide electrolyte. They found that TiO2 based dye-sensitized solar cell with 30nm ZnO layer thickness showed 4.51% efficiency due to the formation of efficient recombination barrier at electrode/electrolyte interface. Further increase in ZnO barrier thickness may leak the electrons injected from the dye due to its low electron effective mass of 0.2me.

The present study involves the synthesis of a bismuth oxide (BiO) electrode consisting of an arranged nano-platelets for evolving a flower-type surface appearance on nickel-foam (BiO-Ni-F) by a simple, inexpensive, binder-free and one-step chemical bath deposition (CBD) method, popularly known as a wet chemical method. The as-prepared BiO on Ni-foam, as an electrode material, demonstrates 557 F g specific capacitance (SC, at 1 mA cm), of which 85% is retained even after 2000 cycles. With specific power density of 500 kW kg, the BiO-Ni-F electrode documents a specific energy density of 80 Wh kg. Furthermore, a portable asymmetric supercapacitor device, i.e. a pencil-type cell consisting of BiO-Ni-F as an anode and graphite as a cathode in 6 M KOH aqueous electrolyte solution, confirms 11 Wh kg and 720 kW kg specific energy and specific power densities, respectively. An easy and a simple synthesis approach for manufacturing a portable laboratory scale pencil-type supercapacitor device is a major outcome of this study, which can also be applied for ternary and quaternary metal oxides for recording an enhanced performance. In addition, we presented a demonstration of lighting a light emitting diode (LED) using a home-made pencil-type supercapacitor device which, finally, has confirmed the scaling and technical potentiality of BiO-Ni-F in energy storage devices.

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