Photofabrication of Highly Transparent Platinum Counter Electrodes at Ambient Temperature for Bifacial Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Platinum (Pt) counter electrodes (CEs) have consistently shown excellent electrocatalytic performance and holds the record of the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). However, its use for large-scale production is limited either by high temperature required for thermal decomposition of its precursor or by wastage of the material leading to high cost or sophisticated equipment. Here, we report a novel photofabrication technique to fabricate highly transparent platinum counter electrodes by ultraviolet (UV) irradiation of platinic acid (H2PtCl6.6H2O) on rigid fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and flexible indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates. The photofabrication technique is a facile and versatile method for the fabrication of Pt CEs for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The photofabricated Pt CEs were used to fabricate bifacial DSSCs with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) attaining 7.29% for front illumination and 5.85% for rear illumination. The highest percentage ratio of the rear illumination efficiency to the front illumination efficiency (ηR) of 85.92% was recorded while the least ηR is 77.91%.

Dye-sensitized solar cells strike back

“…A good CE for DSCs should have the following qualities: high catalytic activity towards the redox mediator, high conductivity, high reflectance, low cost, high surface area, high porosity, low charge-transfer resistance, high exchange current density, chemical resistance to corrosion, energy alignment meeting the potential of the electrolyte's redox couple and good processability for deposition. 511,512 For DSCs, a great variety of CE preparation recipes has been demonstrated, including thermal and photo-decomposition, [513][514][515][516] electrochemical deposition, [517][518][519] chemical vapor deposition, 520 and sputter deposition. [521][522][523] The preparation methods greatly affect particle size, surface, morphology, and catalytic and electrochemical characteristics of the electrodes.…”

Cadmium Sulfide Quantum Dots–Organometallic Halide Perovskite Bilayer Electrode Structures for Supercapacitor Applications

“…The two identical electrodes were held together by two binder clips and the devices were kept in a glove box for 24 h for electrode/electrolyte contact to improve. The electrolyte used contains KOH dissolved in a clear 1 g/mL PVA‐chlorobenzene solution …”

“…For comparative study, three different symmetric electrochemical capacitors were fabricated viz: CdS quantum dots (CSQDs) single layer electrodes, CdS quantum dots and methyl ammonium lead iodide (CSQDs‐MPI) bilayer electrodes and CdS quantum dots and methyl ammonium bismuth iodide (CSQDs‐MBI) bilayer electrodes. Self‐synthesized CdS quantum dots, using pulsed lase ablation in liquid technique, and one‐step solution processed perovskites were used for fabrication of the bilayer electrodes . The CSQDs‐Perovskite bilayer electrodes not only reassert ultracapacitor behavior of organometallic halide perovskite materials but also improved the capacitive performance of Cadmium sulfide quantum dots.…”

Fabrication and characterization of novel hybrid nanocomposites with application in solar cells

“…Today, a large number of highly transparent and efficient counter electrodes have been reported. Many of them utilize Pt as the catalyst, however, many novel high-performance and transparent Pt-free counter electrodes have also been demonstrated recently [287,288,389,403,404]. Ku et al [405] fabricated highly transparent (~ 90% at visible wavelengths) NiS-based counter electrodes for DSSCs with a facile electrodeposition technique, achieving a maximum energy conversion efficiency of 6.25%.…”

“…By using highly transparent counter electrodes in DSSCs, energy conversion efficiencies that exceed 10% from bifacial irradiation have been reported [407]. It is also important to mention that the percentage ratio of the rear to the front illumination efficiency for bifacial DSSCs (rigid, flexible, and quasi-solid state) has been improved greatly in the last few years, with reported values reaching or even exceeding the 80% [220,404,[408][409][410].…”