Nickel phosphide-embedded graphene as counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Nickel phosphide-embedded graphene, prepared by the hydrothermal reaction of red phosphorus, nickel chloride, and graphene oxide in a mixture of ethylene glycol-water, is investigated as the counter electrode of DSSCs. It is demonstrated that the DSSC with the nickel phosphide-embedded graphene as the new counter electrode presents an excellent performance competing with that of the Pt electrode.

Electrocatalytic properties of iron chalcogenides as low-cost counter electrode materials for dye-sensitized solar cells

“…[7] Hence, cost-effective and highly electrocatalytic alternative CE materials should be developed. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Iron (Fe) widely exists in the Earth's crust and ranks fourth among the most abundant elements, following oxygen, silicon, and aluminum. Fe compounds with various compositions, valence states, and crystal structures [23,24] are abundant, cost effective, and environmentally friendly; furthermore, Fe compounds have been extensively investigated because of important optical, electrical, optoelectronic, and transport properties.…”

A composite catalytic film of Ni-NPs/PEDOT: PSS for the counter electrodes in dye–sensitized solar cells

“…These transition metal compounds also find other applications, e.g., super capacitors [17], fuel cells [18], and sensors [19]. Among these transition metal compounds, nickel based compounds, such as NiS, Ni 3 S 2 [9,20], Ni 12 P 5 [21], and sulfur-doped NiO [22], were proved to show superior electro-catalytic ability, when they were used as counter electrode materials in DSSCs. A nickel incorporated carbon nanotube/nanofiber composite CE rendered for its DSSC a solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency (Á) of 8.32%, which was much better than that of the DSSC (7.96%) with a platinum counter electrode (Pt-CE) [23].…”

High-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells based on nitrogen and graphene oxide co-incorporated TiO2 nanofibers photoelectrode

“…Among the reported exploited doping elements, N atom and carbonaceous materials received particular attention to improve the performance in DSSCs [13,[17][18][19][20]. However, the corresponding concentration of the doping elements should be carefully adjusted as using large amount of these doping species can create carrier recombination centers or light-harvesting competition with dye which greatly minimizes the performances of photoelectrode [21][22][23][24]. Recently, experimental studies have demonstrated that low concentration co-doping of TiO 2 with both non metal-anions and metal-cations can enhance the efficiency of DSSCs compared with mono-doping [25][26][27][28].…”